Life in the Woods
by Princess Futon
Summary: An unexpected encounter on a train leads a Human into the position of mayor for Animal Town, whether he likes it or not. Given a year to stay in the town, the prior life of the mayor is slowly revealed as he builds relations with the residents of the town. Art by the ever-fantastic Caroline Elsner (@scare o line).
1. Chapter 1: A New Leaf

Chapter 1: A New Leaf

My first sight of a new life abroad was of the forest, autumnal reds dappled with specks of orange. It passed by as a blur from the train-window when I looked away, a painter's smeared palette of vivid pastels. The train's clattering fell into a staccato beat, lulling me into a haze of near-sleep; how long had it been since I had last slept? It was hard to say if I'd had a wink since the whirlwind of transfers to various stations, some of which were of the 'one train a day' variety, including the one I was currently on. Perhaps it was for the best, considering my actions over the last few days. The last thing I needed was for a well-meaning conductor to start prodding me with questions, wondering whether it might just be better to call the police regarding a scruffy gentleman shouting in his sleep.

In my attempt to find some kind of distraction, I managed to catch the eye of a cat seated just a few aisles ahead of me. Despite my best efforts, the cat was evidently desperate for some kind of communication, as he immediately slid off his chair and started walking towards me. I found myself somewhat transfixed by his argyle sweater; my neighbourhood had never been a diverse one, and the few Animals I had known there were often working as janitors or scrubbing dishes in the back of kitchens.

"Sorry to be a bother," The cat said as he reached my aisle. "It's just my watch has been on the fritz for the last few days and I haven't had the time to get it repaired. I was wondering if you have the time?"

He seemed sincere enough, so I checked my own battered wristwatch (long overdue to be replaced) and gave him the time, 4PM. The cat fixed me with a big smile, and I realized I had fallen for his trap and actively engaged him in conversation. My consent was evidently a moot point as he immediately flopped down onto the seat across from me.

"The name's Rover, a pleasure to make your acquaintance." The cat said, extending a paw for me to shake. I narrowed my eyes as I returned the handshake; this cat was clearly a consummate professional when it came to needling information out of strangers.

"Nathan," I grudgingly conceded. "Likewise."

"Not much of a traveller I presume?"

"What gives you that idea?"

"I've been a freelancer of sorts for just over fifteen years now," Rover nodded towards my bulging suitcase on the rack above. "When you're not tied to anywhere, you learn to travel light. That's the kind of suitcase someone who left in a hurry carries."

"I'm not a criminal if that's what you're insinuating." Something about the tone of Rover's voice rubbed me the wrong way.

"Never meant to imply anything of the sort," Rover began, the smile wavering somewhat as he looked me over. "It's just, I've met a lot of your type in my years of travelling."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I should have just walked away at that point, not given Rover the opportunity to feed more fuel to the fire, but something within egged me on to stay and listen.

"Let me guess, you decided life in the big city wasn't working out for you?" Rover paused, as if waiting for an objection, and continued when I remained silent. "Find some small place out in the countryside, so you can live an idyllic life for a few months. Then you get bored, find some other town to sate your curiosity and move on, leave it all behind like it never even mattered to you in the first place. I know it's a hard pill to swallow, but with Humans, you tend to see it all the time.

"You don't know me," I tried to protest, but my words sounded hollow even to myself, more like the insistence of a petulant child. "Maybe I'll be different."

"I'm not saying you won't." Rover said with a shrug. "Just… Where are you headed to?"

I checked the crumpled printout in my pocket. "Animal Town, last stop on this train." _Animal Town_. A name only an Animal founder could love, though I was sure somewhere in the world permits were desperately being filed for a Human City.

"Alright, Animal Town," Rover nodded. "Well why don't we make some kind of bet on it. In one year from this day I'll drop by Animal Town. If you've been living there until then, and you're still there, I will take back everything I have said about you and everyone else."

I could feel the jaws of Rover's trap close around me with an echoing clack of finality. Machiavelli was no doubt rolling in his grave as Rover cranked his smile up to full-beam. With a sigh and a mental note never to allow myself to be drawn into conversations with sweater-wearing cats in the future, I gave a perfunctory nod. It was evidently enough for Rover who slid right off the seat, gave me a pat on the shoulder, and walked off to another carriage, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

I awoke with a rather ungracious start, the kind that involved snorting loudly and a copious amount of saliva dribbling down my chin. It took me a few moments to realize the train had stopped, the sudden silence enough to wake me from my reverie. I peered outside, greeted by the jet-black sky of night, a few dozen stars twinkling merrily down at me from above. I could barely make out the hazy outlines of a few houses dotted along the horizon, though what seemed to be light from the train-station made everything beyond a few yards hazy and indistinct. Fortunately it seemed I hadn't made an absolute fool of myself in my sleep, sleeping as uncomfortably as a log judging by the ache in my neck.

"You're here for Animal Town, eek?" A voice, strangely punctuated by a suddenly shriek, asked from behind. I whipped around at the shriek, managing to badly startle the monkey porter who took a step back, giving me a wary look. Brilliant, only a few seconds in Animal Town and I was already freaking out Animals who were just trying to help.

"Yeah, Animal Town," I muttered, hoisting my suitcase down from the rack. "That's me alright."

The porter decided to let me go first, and closed the train doors the instant I had stepped off. I watched the train go, standing awkwardly on the platform with a tattered suitcase at my side as I mentally prepared myself for my new life. One year had been promised, and I fully intended to live up to that promise, even if it was for as petty a reason as to see the look on Rover's face when I would be right here to greet his arrival. It was with a rare feeling of self-confidence that I picked up my suitcase, turned around, and walked out of the station into the brisk autumnal air outside. And a gaggle of Animals huddled just outside the entrance, staring back at me.

"Do you think that's him, wee one?" One of the Animals, a rabbit with black and white fur, whispered loudly.

"I wasn't expecting a Human, cha-chomp." Another, this one a wolf with light grey fur and a white muzzled, replied curtly.

"Looks like the future's finally c-c-catching up with our town d-d-dude." The third animal, a penguin with strange crossed pupils, stuttered.

"Places everyone!" A voice called out, and I realized there was a fourth Animal standing just to my side that I had somehow missed. What was it with Animals and sneaking up behind me? The Animal, a bright yellow dog with some kind of puffy hair-bun and yellow cardigan looked up at me with a smile that didn't quite mask the quiet apprehension in her eyes. "From those of us in Animal Town, welcome!" She bellowed, the other Animals following her lead with varying degrees of success, the penguin struggling with the 'c' long after everyone had finished the greeting. I wasn't entirely sure what to make of this welcoming party, but gave them my best thumbs up with the assumption they were all part of some Town Committee.

"It's so good to finally meet face-to-face Mr. Mayor," The dog said, raising a paw for a handshake. "Is your cold any better?"

"I'm sorry, my cold?" I thought I had heard her also call me 'mayor', but assumed it meant something else in Animal context.

"Yes, when we spoke earlier in the day, you said you had a terrible cold," The dog said with a sympathetic smile, slowly pulling her paw back when it became clear I was too confused to shake it. "Sorry, you must be so tired from your illness and the long trip. I just want you to know that we're incredibly grateful you were able to fill in the position of Mayor with such short notice."

"Rover," I hissed. "You did _not_ just do this to me."

"I'm sorry Mr. Mayor, what was that?" The dog asked, looking more and more agitated by the second. A small part of me realized I was causing a scene, but it was hard to keep calm and collected while being referred to as 'Mr. Mayor'. Fortunately for both of us, the dog decided to take matters into her own hands by grabbing my own in a viselike grip.

"Maybe we should continue this discussion at town hall. After all, I think everyone else is ready to go to bed at this point!" She said with a look that _dared_ me to disagree. The other animals nodded, the rabbit yawning loudly as if to emphasize her weariness, and they all headed off in separate directions with words of farewell to the dog and me. Then we were alone, a bedraggled Human with a small anthropomorphic dog keeping a bare-knuckle hold on his left hand, suitcase in the other. We would have likely made quite a sight for anyone walking by at that moment, but to my relief it seemed nobody had considered a late-night stroll past the station that evening.

"So, about this mayor situation…" I began, but the dog raised a paw to silence me.

"As I said before, I'd rather we continue this conversation at town hall," She said, finally dropping the smile which was replaced with a look of tired resignation. "At the very least, I have coffee there and I think I'm going to need it. Do you drink coffee Mr. Mayor?"

"Not really."

"Well it's as good a time as any to get started I suppose."

She finally relented her grasp on my arm, reaching towards my suitcase that I swiftly pulled away; she looked tired enough already, there was no need to add more to her already stressful day. She looked ready to argue, thought better of it, and lead me onward with a small nod. The path to town hall took us through a few trees bearing plump peaches, as well as mini-houses nestled in small clearings. The town hall itself was located next to a small river, starlight glimmering against its rippling surface, a small stone bridge located conveniently nearby. As I stopped to listen to the calming splashes of the river, I heard the faint chorus of crickets chirping away at the midnight sky. I took a moment to just stand there and listen, remembering a childhood spent out amongst the fields under a night sky almost like this one, though those stars of the past had remained veiled by the city's haze.

The building of the town hall was the biggest I'd seen in the entire town up to that point, three times or so the size of any of the houses we had walked up to by that point. Two pillars of smooth marble rose up so high that I had to take a step back and peer up just to see the roof. A giant clock centred above the door announced the time to be of the witching hour, and I half expected to see a witch go cackling by just above our heads. The dog nudged me, breaking me out of my reverie and gently guided me over to the door, which to my surprise had been left unlocked, as she opened it without the need for a key.

"What if somebody just waltzed in?" I asked as we made our way inside.

"I appreciate your concern," The dog replied with a small smile. "But in the fifty-odd years this town hall has stood here, nobody has taken advantage of its open-door policy."

Looking at the interior of the town hall, it was hard not to see why this was the case. The first word I thought of when looking around was 'homey'. In fact, it looked like a house that had one day been re-purposed into becoming a town hall; I began to wonder if this was actually the case. The room itself was divided by a long counter at the front and an ornate wooden desk at the end. The former was piled up with piles of colour-coded paperwork, a frighteningly large coffee-machine, a home-phone that had most likely been set up twenty years ago, and a potted plant I was almost certain was plastic sitting alongside a 'Secretary' nameplate that had a post-it note saying ISABELLE on it (it was hard to say which one felt more sad). The latter meanwhile sported a phenomenally dusty computer, what looked to be a rotary phone, even more paperwork (not colour-coded), and a #1 Mayor mug.

The only articles of value appeared to be at the very end of the room, which featured a large bookcase stacked with pulse-pounding titles like Learning To Live With Stress and Tending To Your Garden, a bonsai that may have also been plastic, some kind of… modern art display made of stone, and a few town-awards dating back thirty years or so. A painting of some kind of geriatric turtle in a top-hat and round glasses frowned down at me, as if daring me to try and take any of the valuables he watched over.

"That's Tortimer, the… _Former_ mayor of this town," Isabelle said, walking up to my side. "He was mayor for as long as I can remember, we all saw him as an icon of the town. I applied for the position of secretary as soon as I could. Worked ten years under him, day in and day out, never took a day off unless I really needed it. Then, one day, he just quit, headed out to some tropical island and left me to deal with everything in his absence. Including finding a new mayor."

"Sounds mortifying." I said, feeling a sudden and felt an unexpected yawn break through before I could stop myself. I think it took all the willpower Isabelle possessed not to strangle me to death right there and then.

"So," I said hastily, hoping to change the subject. "Look, I know things are evidently a bit chaotic here, but I'm really not the mayor."

"Technically not the mayor."

"Technically?" I turned to look at her, and she met my eyes with a worryingly defiant look. "Sorry, I think we might be having different conversations right now. I am not qualified to be your mayor, I never studied political science. I wasn't even head of any club in school! How would I be expected to run a whole town, let alone a town populated by Animals?"

"Enough!" Isabelle shouted, the first time I had heard her actually raise her voice. Even she looked somewhat surprised by the outburst. It was enough to shock some degree of sense back into my system, and I took a moment to take some deep breaths and calm myself down. Isabelle sighed heavily, rubbing her face and looking over at the counter. "I'm going to make some coffee. Just… Take a seat in the mayor's chair and close your eyes a bit."

It seemed like good enough advice, so I reclined in the deceptively comfortable office-chair while Isabelle began to work the coffee-machine; it began to shudder and sputter as if possessed by some kind of vengeful poltergeist. As I closed my eyes, I heard music begin to drift through the room, a gentle acoustic medley accompanied by the squeaky tones of some Animal. I wasn't normally into Animal music, but there was something about this song that helped put my heart at ease.

"Who is that?" I asked, still leaned back in the chair.

"K.K. Slider," Isabelle answered, her tone somewhat wistful. "Wandering. The first single I ever bought with my own money. I would play it over and over, to the point my brother would ask me how I didn't get tired of it. I always had a hard time in school, I would stress out over the smallest things and tend to give up after making even the smallest mistake. But when I listened to this song, I felt I could actually relax, leave my worries all behind me. It was hard, but eventually I was able find ways to cope, and managed to graduate top of my class. Found work as a municipal civil servant soon after that."

The grinding and screeching of the machine finally stopped as the music reached its cadence, the last few bars of the guitar giving way to silence. I opened my eyes, seeing Isabelle pick up a steaming cup of coffee and slowly make her way over to me. She put a paw on my shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze.  
"I know I'm asking you for a lot," Isabelle said. "Especially as someone who you haven't even met before. If your mind really is set against this then I won't push you any further. I'll go back to searching and maybe we will be able to find someone. But I just want you to know, if you do become mayor, you won't have to do it alone. As secretary, I will be behind you every step of the way, and I'm sure the townsfolk would understand if I explained the situation to them."

I don't know what made me nod. Maybe it was that this was the first time anyone had talked to me with such kindness in some time, maybe the music had melted away some part of my resolve, maybe there really was some part of me that genuinely wanted to offer some kind of helping hand to Isabelle. All I can say is that I nodded, much to Isabelle's joy as she gave me a smile that seemed a little strange at the time. I only realized later that I had never seen her give an actual smile free from worry before.

"Thank you, I… Thank you." She said, breathing in a sigh of relief and taking a brief sip of her coffee. "Now, I know it's late and I'm sure you just want to head right to bed, but there are a few important things we should take care of now so that they're sorted in the morning."

"I hope these aren't going to be involved processes." I grumbled, feeling the onset of eyestrain despite my fitful sleep in the train.

"Not _too_ involved Mr. Mayor," Isabelle assured me, walking over to the counter and pulling a sheet of paper from a filing-cabinet underneath. "You're going to need to fill out this Resident Registration Form. Every resident of the town has to be filed into official government records, think of it like a retroactive travel visa. There's not too much to write on your end, I can fill in most of the minor details."

She walked over and handed me the paper along with a pen, and I got to writing. As she said, it was a relatively simple if bureaucratic form, with one minor issue. I paused at the line under ADDRESS, glancing up at Isabelle who was hovering over my shoulder like a concerned mother watching her child work on his exam preparations.

So do they want my old address from when I was living in the city?" I asked.

"Oh no, you'll need to write in your…" Isabelle stopped mid-sentence, her eyes going wide. Before I could ask what the problem was, she rushed over to the counter and began hastily flipping through the paperwork on her desk. "Mr. Mayor, did you send in an application for residence before you got here?"

I felt a hot flush on my cheeks. "I uh, a friend of mine may have told me Animals live in a communal society and even the houses are shared and free for use by everyone."

Isabelle gave me what I could only describe as a deadpan stare. "So you decided to assume your friend's, rather racist if we're being honest, information about Animals was completely accurate and booked a train without checking up on the town even once?"

"That may have been the case, yes." I admitted, shuffling uncomfortably under Isabelle's incredulous stare. It took Isabelle a few moments to compose herself, as she sat down in her chair and put her paws over her face to stifle a groan. There were many times where Isabelle's refusal to fully call me out on my bad habits only led me to feel worse about them, and this was without a doubt one of those times. Motioning for me to stay seated, she picked up the telephone's receiver and dialed a number, mashing on the buttons a few times when they appeared to jam. I checked my watch (midnight), wondering if the Animal Isabelle wanted to call would even pick up.

"Yes, hello?" Isabelle suddenly said, putting an end to that line of thought. "It's me, Isabelle. Yes, I know it's late, I hope I didn't wake you. Oh, I see. Well, I happen to have the new mayor with me in town hall right now, and we've hit a bit of a snag with his residence. See, he's a Human from the city and he… Oh, really?" Isabelle shot me another incredulous look, to which I shrunk down as much as I could in my seat. "I know it's a bother, but could I send him over to you to get this sorted out? Thank you so much, I'll send a thank-you gift to you when this is all done. No, really, I insist. Alright, well he should be there in a few minutes." The receiver came down with a sharp clack, and Isabelle practically yelled out a sigh of relief.

"So, all sorted?" I asked with an awkward smile. Isabelle nodded, opening another filing cabinet and taking out a somewhat weather-beaten folded up piece of paper.

"Yes, though I'm going to need to ask you to do something for me," She said, coming to my seat and handing me the piece of paper, which turned out to be a sizable map of the town. "I want to get work on filing your paperwork, both for residence and mayoral position, right away so you'll need to head to the real-estate office on your own. It's called Nook's Homes, you'll find it in a part of town we call Main Street, just across the railroad. Mr. Nook will be waiting for you there, he's handled these situations before so just use this map to find your way there and you should be all right. It's a rather straight path so you shouldn't have that much difficulty."

Judging by the map, it certainly didn't look like a hard place to find; all I had to do was make my way back to the station, cross over to the other side, and Nook's Homes would presumably right on the left-hand side. Doing my best to stifle a yawn, I decided it would be for the best if I set off for the office right away, before I ended up falling asleep next to a park-bench or something. I wasn't even sure why I was so tired; evidently the seats of the train had been enough to trigger some kind of hidden princess-and-the-pea complex within me. With a parting nod to Isabelle who had returned to her counter and was sorting through all manner of paperwork as she worked on my registration as well as what looked be a few additional forms, I headed out once more into the crisp evening of the town.

Having the chance to be on my own and admire the town without Isabelle rushing me past the sights, I was struck with just how quiet everything was. Every now and then a soft gust would brush through the trees, causing them to rustle in a chorus of whispers, but other than that it felt like I was truly on my own; such a far cry from the ceaseless hustle and bustle of the city I had known for so long. As I walked through the trees, scattered around the fields as if they had fallen from the hand of a careless giant, I heard the soft rhythmic crunch of footsteps on leaves somewhere ahead of me. I hesitated, not sure who else would be wandering around the town at this kind of hour, and peered at a cluster of trees where I could just make out the form of someone wandering between them, hidden by their shadow.

"Who's that skulking about?" A gruff voice called out, and the figure stepped forward into the light. It was the wolf I had seen at the train-station, carrying a shovel with him. "Oh, it's The Human, cha-chomp."

"Yep, that's me." I replied, keeping an eye on the shovel. What was he doing out here so late in the evening carrying that thing? I wondered if Isabelle would be able to hear me if I screamed loud enough. He also didn't look to be very tall, it seemed possible I could outrun him if he came after me for whatever reason, book it for town hall. Then again, looking at the wolf in the light, he didn't actually seem all that intimidating, with rounded features and a knitted white-and-blue shirt of some kind. Still, there was no telling with an Animal, especially one that was wandering the town at night, shovel in paw.

"The name's Fang, here's hoping you can do some good for the town," The wolf said with a curt nod. "I think we've been in desperate need for new blood for some time now cha-chomp."

I wasn't entirely sure what to say, somewhat taken aback by the constant 'cha-chomp's that so heavily punctuated his statements. I decided to settle with an understanding nod and what I hoped was a serious enough face, which was evidently enough for Fang, who proceeded to turn around and begin digging.

Building up the courage to ask, and hoping it wouldn't be too much of some kind of Animal faux-pas, I suddenly blurted out, "So what's with the digging?"

Fang paused, looked up at me, and then down at his shovel. "Looking for gyroids. It was raining pretty heavily last night so they'll probably be around cha-chomp."

"Gyroids? What are those supposed to be?"  
"Oh, you don't have them where you're from?" Fang looked a little surprised. "You can find them everywhere in small towns like these. They're statues that sing, I have two in my house and I assume some of my neighbours would have them. You'll probably come across one if you go out digging after a rainy day, cha-chomp."

This was probably the first time I'd heard anyone refer to 'going out digging' as some kind of daily activity. I desperately wanted to ask Fang more questions, but my appointment with Nook's Homes outweighed my curiosity, so I said my goodbyes and left him to his gyroid-hunt. There were no other encounters after that, all the houses I walked by dark and silent, the only waking creatures I heard being the crickets nestled in the leaves around my feet. I felt good, my first conversation with a resident of the town seeming to have gone better than expected. I also made a mental note to see about getting a shovel, perhaps if I were able to find a gyroid of my own it would help me fit in better.

Finally I arrived at the train-station, a stairway snaking its way up a hill that rose just beyond the tracks. I could see the faint impression of lights at the top of the hill that seemed alarmingly distant. As I let out a sigh of resolution and began to make my way up the long winding stairway, I found myself wondering if Isabelle absolutely needed to work on the paperwork back in the warm confines of the town hall. Biting winds accosted me as I hunched over, nothing but a frayed jacket to protect me, almost crab-shuffling my way up the stairs.

"This is ridiculous." I muttered to myself as a sudden gust tried to grab at me and throw me off the stairs, forcing me to hunch down precariously on a step.

"Oh my, are you alright there wee one?" A soft voice called out from above, and I peered at the stairway before me to see the rabbit from the train station looking down at me with concern. Did any of these Animals ever sleep? I cautiously stood back up as she made her way down the stairs, carrying a flower-patterned satchel to the side.

"I think I'm alright, just got caught by surprise is all," I said once she was on the same step as me. "What about you?"

"Oh, you don't have to worry about me," The rabbit said with a laugh. "I trained in ballet when I was young so I have grace and poise others could only dream of." She did a little ballerina pose, glancing my way with a questioning look. After a few seconds of looking at the pose, I realized what she was waiting for and gave her a polite moment's applause.

"Why are you even making your way up these steps at this hour?" She asked, looking me up and down with an appraising stare. "Didn't Isabelle take you out to town hall?"

"I just have to go see Mr. Nook to get some small things sorted," I replied, hoping she wouldn't ask any further. "Are you coming back from seeing him?"

The rabbit laughed again. "Oh, Nook is a sweetheart but he's not exactly the kind of company I keep. I was just up to the post-office to check on my mail, I know it gets delivered in the morning and evening but I have some friends in other towns who like to be up late so the mail comes in around this time wee one." She reached into the satchel, pulling out a letter and then opening it up right in front of me, to my surprise.

"Don't you want to keep that private?" I asked, and she gave me an inquisitive look.

"But then who would I be able to share it with?" She scanned through the letter, smiled, and handed it over to me. "Go on, have a look at this lovely letter my friend sent me."

I still felt apprehensive, but I didn't want to somehow hurt the rabbit's feelings so I took the letter and began to read.

 _Dear Dotty,_

 _It's so great to hear you're getting a new mayor! I can't believe we still have the same mayor, he's so old I think you could replace him with one of the fossils and nobody would notice. I'm honestly kind of jealous now, maybe I'll have to come and move over to your town and then we can be neighbours! Maybe if your mayor is a real looker I might try and steal them from under your nose. Just kidding!_

 _Or am I? Love, Felicity_

I handed the letter back to Dotty who read through it once more and sighed somewhat wistfully. "Gosh she's so good at writing letters, right? I do wish she'd come over so we could be neighbours, but then I wonder if we would share as much mail? Things really can be complicated, can't they… Oh my, I just realized I didn't even get your name!"

"Just call me Nathan." I said, shivering as another gust brushed past us.

"Well Nathan, I'm Dotty," She said, putting the letter back into her satchel and then pulling out a white woolly scarf with a red rabbit pattern, handing it to me. "You can think of me as the town mascot, since you're going to be the mayor. Think of this Dotty Original scarf as a welcoming present, you look ready to turn into an icicle wee one."

I gratefully accepted the scarf and wrapped it around my neck, letting out a heavy sigh of relief as I could stop hunching over to stop the wind tickling my neck with icy fingers. Dotty took a step back to look me over, gave a shrug and said, "We'll consider it a work in progress. Come and see me some time, wee one. I can give you pointers on how to up that fashion."

With a wave, she made her way down, and I watched her make it to the bottom, crossing the tracks and then fading away into the darkness of night. With renewed gusto I began my ascent, now with the scarf to protect me when the autumn winds suddenly decided to renew their frigid attack on me. My gusto dissipated after a minute, turning into wheezing breaths as I tried to push my grossly out-of-shape body up the seemingly endless trial of stairs. Upon making it to the top, I had to take a moment to crouch down with my hands on my knees, hacking up a lung and promising anyone in earshot that my first decree as mayor would be building some kind of escalator for Main Street.

Main Street itself was a row of buildings arrayed along the side of an upside-down T-shaped path, stretching along a section of the cliff that tapered off into flatter land. Many of the buildings were dark; at first I assumed it was because they were closed, but then noticed many of the buildings were boarded shut completely. There were only two near me that had their lights still on, one was the post-office Dotty had mentioned earlier, and the other was a two-story building with a hand-painted 'Nook's Homes' sign over the door. There was something eerie about the stillness of Main Street, the buildings standing there like silent sentinels watching over the path, windows like eyes peering at me with ethereal light. One of the windows of Nook's Homes was suddenly blotted out by a portly figure, presumably Nook, who walked over to the door and opened it.

Nook turned out to be raccoon in a green sweater (knitted just like almost every other Animal's clothing, apparently there was some kind of knitting craze amongst Animal communities that I wasn't aware of) who gave me the kind of smile usually found on the faces of cashiers working the graveyard shift at a convenience store.

"So you are the new mayor, yes?" He asked, rushing up to me with more speed than I would have anticipated from such a rotund fellow. The raccoon grabbed my hand to shake it furiously. "Pleasure to meet you, heard about your situation on the phone, terrible business. Still, you won't need to worry one bit, I've handled these sort of situations before so just come inside and we'll get you sorted, yes yes." He talked at such a rate that I could feel my head beginning to spin as I tried to unpack his sentences. Grabbing me by the arm, he briskly began to usher me into the real-estate office.

The real-estate office felt like a realm of controlled chaos; display-models for all kinds of house-features stood in rows along the spacious room like disparate terracotta soldiers. For a building called an 'office', it didn't resemble any office I knew of. Only a metal drawer and two well-worn sofas in the corner made any attempt to adhere to the floor-design values most offices held. Nook flopped over into one of the sofas, motioning me to take the one opposite as he reached over to the side and pulled out some kind of clipboard along with a pen.

"Now, I'm just going to draft up a simple invoice for your new house. There's not much needed on your end, I'll just need your signature, and for you to tell me where in the town you'd like it to be set up." He handed me the invoice and I glanced through it, narrowing my eyes as I noticed a conspicuously blank section of the sheet.

"There's nothing written down for Down Payment," I noted, pointing at the offending part of the invoice. "Isn't that something we should settle before I write my signature?"  
Tom Nook gave a rather condescending laugh. "You won't have to worry about that at all, as I said, I do have experience with these situations and I've found it's often best to work things out through a prolonged loan of sorts, pay when you can, that sort of thing. Though there was one Human I knew, back before I got into the real-estate business, goodness he was… Oh! Pardon, I got lost in my own thoughts there. In any case, the price will need to be determined after I make all the calculations as to size, materials, time, all kinds of things to consider, you know."

Deciding I could do without hearing Nook fall into reminiscence about his old days, I quickly scribbled my signature. If worst came to worst, I had my passport stashed away deep in my suitcase with an embassy number scribbled down on it; they would probably be able to help me out. I handed the invoice back to Nook who looked it over, nodded with approval, bringing a signature-stamp down on the end and filing it away in the drawer. Rooting around in the drawer, he pulled out a yellow jacket and put it on, turning to me with a smile.

"Well, no time like the present, yes yes?" He asked, bustling right past me and throwing the door open. The cold wind snaked its way into the room, and I only then realized how warm the office had been. With a heavy heart I forced myself up from the warm embrace of the sofa and walked back into the spiteful grip of autumn night, adjusting the scarf and silently thanking Dotty for her generosity. At the very least I wasn't the only one suffering from the cold; Nook rubbed his arms, muttering something about the cold and his age, and we both made haste down the stairs for a few moments before I almost tripped and we wisely decided to take such a precarious way down a little more cautiously.

It didn't take me long to find a part of town that suited me, partly due to being rushed by the increasingly cold night, but partly because I noticed a nice empty part of town on the map. It would afford me a nice view of the river, and a few trees grew in a semi-circle around the spot I had chosen. Nook also seemed pleased with it, as he walked around marking a few calculations in a pocket-notebook and nodded to himself.

"Yes yes, this should do nicely. I'll have to move one or two trees to make sure we have the space needed, but all in all there should be no problem. Now, of course I can't just make a house appear with a snap of my fingers, but while you go back to town hall and sort everything else out, I can set up a temporary residence of sorts for you."

"Hey, Nook," I said, feeling a little bad that this raccoon was doing so much for me at such an hour, especially considering this was all because of my own blunder. "Thanks for all of this, it really does mean a lot to me."

"Oh, it's no problem, no problem at all," Nook said with a smile. "Besides, when you… Oh, no need to worry about these things, you really should be getting back to town hall, Isabelle is a wonderful secretary but I fear she does push herself too hard in the evenings, yes yes?"

I had completely forgotten about Isabelle, probably sitting there in a cold hall, waiting for me to get back as I dawdled about. Thanking Nook again, I rushed off towards town hall, hoping Isabelle wouldn't be too angry for how long I had probably taken. Town hall loomed in the horizon as I drew closer, the clock angrily informing me that half-an-hour had already passed since I had left for Nook. How did the time pass this quickly?

Skidding to a stop just in front of the door and slowly opening it, I peered inside. Isabelle reclined in her chair, snoring loudly with a paw-print blanket wrapped around her, a mound of papers splayed out on the desk before her. I tiptoed over as silently as I could, checking over the papers; most of them were completed forms for residence and mayoral application, all they needed was my signature. I picked up a pen and scribbled down my signatures, paused, then grabbed a sticky-note and wrote down _Thanks for everything, hope I can do you proud_ , sticking it on the very top-most form. With a last glance at the sleeping Isabelle, I picked up my suitcase and headed back out to see Nook.

I had to give it to Nook, he worked fast; stakes and rope had been set up to make a makeshift square fence, and a large tent had been pitched in the middle.

"It's not much, but I've left a portable heater in there and the tent should be insulated enough to keep you from freezing through the night," Nook said, yawning loudly. "In any case, I am incredibly tired and need to get back to the office. Do come by tomorrow, I'll have the down payment figured out by then so we can discuss such things at your leisure. Good night, Mayor."

With that he left me to give a cursory inspection of my temporary accommodations. It was mercifully warm inside, the heater already doing its best to noisily pump out as much heat as its battery would allow. It was otherwise sparse in terms of decoration, I propped my suitcase in one corner and took out a threadbare blanket that would hopefully be enough for the night. The grass underneath the tent's floor felt soft enough, outside of a few patches with a rock underneath that I would have to avoid rolling onto. Just as I was about to get comfortable, I heard rustling outside, the sound of something coming towards my tent. I froze as the noise, footsteps most likely, drew ever closer. Finally they drew to a stop just outside the tent, I heard some kind of soft breathing outside.

"Mr. Mayor?" Isabelle's voice called out. "Are you awake? Sorry to bother you at this hour, I just wanted to bring you something for the tent."

Breathing a sigh of relief, I opened the tent-flap to see Isabelle wrapped in a massive puffy jacket, holding up a comically oversized lantern. "Sorry, I just remembered we had a spare lantern in town hall for emergencies, and felt you might want to use it while you're here in the tent?" She said.

"How did you know I was sleeping in a tent?" I asked. Isabelle gave me a somewhat sheepish look.

"Well, this is actually an old tent me and my family used to use when I was really young," She admitted. "We went camping a lot, but it didn't see as much use after I got my job as secretary, so I ended up giving it to Nook so he could go camping with his nephews. I assumed he would probably set it up since you don't have any housing yet. That and… well I kind of wanted to give the tent another look-around, just remember the good times I had with it."

Isabelle gave the tent a sniff, closing her eyes and smiling. "If I close my eyes, I can still smell the marshmallows we used to cook over the fire, the four of us all together and warm. It really was the happiest time of my life." I wasn't sure whether to interrupt her reminiscence, but she suddenly remembered I was standing right in front of her as she gasped and raised a paw to her mouth.

"Oh, I'm really sorry Mr. Mayor! I'm sure you want to go to bed and here I am talking so much about my life. I'll let you get to bed now, really sorry about keeping you, goodnight!"

I waved goodbye, but before Isabelle was fully out of the tent, she whirled back around with a small yelp. "Oh! Before I forget, Mr. Mayor!"

"Yes?" I asked, hoping Isabelle wouldn't be knocking my tent down at 4 in the morning to remind me about some small detail she had forgotten to impart.

"There's going to be a special ceremony to celebrate your arrival here in Animal Town in the morning. I was hoping to do it today, but with how late you arrived I felt it would probably be best to just do it tomorrow morning. Or, this morning I suppose. It's a tradition that goes back a long time and it's very important, all the townsfolk will be there and it will be a few residents' first time seeing you, so please do come to town hall just before 9 o'clock so we can prepare."

"They won't expect me to do some kind of speech, will they?" I asked. Isabelle stared back at me with a somewhat worried smile, before saying "Not a big one. Goodnight Mr. Mayor." and closing the tent-flap. I tried to remember the last speech I had ever given; maybe it was that time I managed to embarrass myself during a short-lived attempt to run for school-mayor, a shaking little boy so nervous that he vomited all over the principal, on stage, in front of the entire school. Hopefully this time would go better, and Isabelle's clothes and pride would remain in better condition than the principal's. I shook my head; it was bad enough having the responsibility of mayor thrust upon me, I didn't need to drudge up embarrassing memories to make myself feel any more stressed than I already was.

Finding a comfortable patch of land, I lay back and draped the blanket over me. The heater sputtered to a halt, apparently the battery had run dry already, but the tent seemed retentive enough to keep the interior from suddenly freezing over. It wasn't exactly the most comfortable accommodation I'd experienced, but it was most definitely better than nothing. Outside I heard a soft whisper of wind, the sound of shivering leaves and gentle sonata of night insects. I stretched, trying my best to relax, but it was proving impossible to get the feeling of nervous tension out of me as I pondered my newfound mayoral status.

Still, maybe this was for the best. I had to admit, I had never quite been as much of an active person as I had (well, my parents) wished for myself to be. Maybe this would be the spark that would light a fire, an unexpected road that would reveal hidden talents within me I had never had the time or opportunity to awaken. Or maybe I would end up messing everything up and have to pack it up and leave the town behind, like I always did.

I saw Rover's face swim up in my vision, that smug self-satisfied smile as he told me I wouldn't even last a year. Other faces drifted in behind him like phantoms, peering down at me with tacit disapproval in their eyes. All thoughts of defiance within me melted away, I shrank down and curled up into a little ball, hoping I could somehow become so small as to avoid their notice. Nothing but the wind answered me as I cried softly, the walls of the tent keeping my voice from the rest of the world outside. On the first night I spent in Animal Town, I didn't feel like a mayor. I just felt like a small little man, lost in a world he didn't know how to handle.


	2. Chapter 2: With You, By the Sea

Chapter 2: With You, By the Sea

My eyes snap open, one cheek pressed against a cool surface with a strange wetness around the corner of my mouth. With a groan, I push myself upright and gingerly touch a paw to the wetness. Yep, that's drool all right. All over my papers, too. Great.

"One of these days, you're going to buy yourself a pillow." I mutter, doing as much damage control as I can , putting the unstained papers in one pile and setting the drool-covered papers next to the window to dry. A name flashes out at me on the topmost paper; Nathan. Aren't humans meant to have a last name? It was a form designed for Animal specifications, so it isn't as if it was necessary, but looking at it again, does seem a bit… strange.

 _Is there anything normal about our new mayor?_ My brain butts in. _Touché, brain_. I think, before shaking my head. Yes, he can be a bit rude at times and he's not exactly the mayor I would've hoped for, but this is clearly a stressful time for him. I should just give him a few days to settle down, and things should work themselves out. I sigh, and my eyes settle on the note he left me yesterday night. _Hope I can do you proud_. He's a good person, I know it. All he needs is some time and a welcoming spirit.

I hear the town's bells begin to ring. Once, twice… I begin to sweat the closer it reaches nine, but breathe a sigh of relief as it stops at eight. Still an hour left before the mayor has to arrive. Maybe it would be best if I go check up on him? But would that come off as belittling? No, I should trust in the mayor. I'm sure he's getting up right now, getting ready to head right on over to town hall. Who knows, he might even knock on the door any moment now. Any moment. Just have to… Trust in him…

I stare at out the window for a few moments, heave another sigh, and get ready to head out and make my way to the mayor's tent. I feel like there's something I'm missing here, something important, but it's just not coming to me right now. Throwing on my cardigan, I swing open the door and leap to the side, narrowly avoiding crashing into Pete, the town's delivery-pelican.

"Pete!" I cry out, noticing a small bundle in his arms. "I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there! Are you all right? The door didn't clip you at all did it?"

"I'm quite alright , thank you." Pete replies, shifting the bundle to one arm as he reaches into his bag with the other. "Even more fortunate, your delivery is safe and sound as well. Oh, if you could just sign this form."

I blink a few times, looking over the form before immediately remembering my fevered rush to order the ceremonial sapling soon after hearing the news that our new mayor was on his way. Scribbling my signature on the bottom of the form Pete offers me, I graciously accept the bundle wrapped in coarse fabric and wave him goodbye as he swiftly flies up and away to make more deliveries. I cannot believe I almost rushed out of town hall while forgetting the most important part of the ceremony. Making sure there isn't anything else crucial that slipped my mind, I adjust the bundle in my arms and set off in the direction of the mayor.

* * *

Autumn has always been my favourite season of them all. Maybe it's because I was born in the middle of winter, meaning the earliest of my fuzzy youthful memories are mostly of falling leaves, dad raking up the leaves while Digby runs around his feet. I watch the two from the doorway, mom just behind me, steam rising from my favourite cup. Each snap and crackle of the leaves brings me a little memory, a smell or sound from my childhood. Digby incessantly sniffing due to a cold, the smell of mom's homemade mushroom soup, the warmth of a family hug as we looked up at the stars above us during one of our annual camping trips. With these memories comes a more recent memory, a letter from Digby telling me of his plans to visit Animal Town as part of a work excursion, letting me know how mom is, telling me how we should meet up soon after he arrives. Now that I think about it, the last time we met was... during the funeral.

Poor Digby. It hurt me when he put on a brave face, telling me he was doing all right even though I could see in his eyes how much pain he was in. There was always a part of me that knew it was inevitable we would grow somewhat distant after he left the town, but actually feeling it during such a time was… difficult. But maybe Digby moving back to our hometown, even if just for a little bit, would help us reconnect. We could even invite mom, have a proper family reunion. She always loved to take a walk along the tulips.

Seeing the mayor's tent suddenly loom in the horizon, I make a mental note to reply to Digby's letter and glance around to make sure the mayor isn't already out and about. My surroundings seem quiet, and so I gingerly make my way to the tent flap and call out to him.

"Mr. Mayor?" I ask. "Mr. Mayor, are you awake? Sorry if I woke you, but it's time for the ceremony?" I hear shuffling in the tent followed by soft groaning and a few popping sounds that make me cringe. _Well, at least he's getting up._ I take the opportunity to do my own stretches, taking in the brisk autumnal air, humming a melody I'd been thinking about proposing as the town tune. I'm mostly confident I've got a good tune down, but the moment I think about presenting it to the town, I suddenly find all kinds of faults with it that make me reconsider. Even the thought of the mayor listening to me sing is enough to make me stumble over the notes, my voice faltering until I sigh and fall silent.

Behind me, I hear the tent flap being lifted, and turn to greet the mayor with a smile. As he steps out, I have to restrain the urge to shift back a little. I keep forgetting just how _tall_ humans are, Nathan himself must be at least twice my size. It doesn't help that his unkempt hair and stubble, together with the thick winter coat and scarf, make him look more like a wandering vagabond than anything else. I see the mayor's gaze shift over to the package in my arms, and I lift it up for him to see it a little better.

"Oh, this is for the ceremony," I explain. "I was just able to get it ordered from a specialist after I got the phone call. I have to admit, I was a little worried it wouldn't get here in time, but looks like there was nothing to worry about."

The mayor raises an eyebrow before giving me some kind of perplexed glare. _Is… Is he angry about something?_ Was he upset that I hadn't told him before? He suddenly nods and turns away, staring off into the distance. _Is this just a human thing? Or a mayor thing?_ I wonder to myself, suppressing a sigh as we begin to make our way to the plaza. I lead the way at first, listening to the mayor's footsteps crunching behind me, one step for every two that I take. Hearing someone slowly walking right behind me starts to trigger some kind of subconscious flight-or-fight instinct, and I quickly shuffle to the side so that I'm walking parallel with the mayor.

"It's not that far," I say, trying my best to seem anything but flustered. "We can take it slow."

"Yeah." Mayor Nathan says, glancing down at me before staring off into the distance again. He seemed receptive enough yesterday evening, maybe he's just not much of a morning person. _Well, if he doesn't want to talk, there's nothing to be gained in pushing him._ The silence isn't that bad; I can hear the robins chirping away in their morning chorus, the burble of the river somewhere to our north, the gentle crackling of dried leaves underfoot. It's very… relaxing.

"So, Isabelle." The mayor suddenly asks, yanking me out of my zen moment. _Oh, so you do want to talk._ I almost say, catching the words on my tongue at the very last second. "Where are we headed to?"

"Oh, we're headed to the town plaza," I say, a little pleased at the opportunity to explain an important part of the town's history. "It's actually where the old town hall was, but they had it demolished ages ago after concerns over health and safety. There was a town vote to decide what to put in place of the old town hall, and in the end it was decided to make a town plaza, based on a wishing-well the town once had when it was first founded."

As I finish my history lesson, the plaza itself comes into view. All the residents are already gathered and were milling around the plaza. I see Punchy, which is… honestly a surprise. I'd sent off the invitations to all the residents, but Punchy's the type of cat who lived on his own schedule. He's in the middle of chatting with Cube, which makes me happy. Punchy's always been the only one he could really relax around.

I also spot Olivia, which is… not exactly a surprise but doesn't fill me with a lot of confidence. Given how much of a nervous wreck the mayor almost was yesterday, the last thing he needs is a face-to-face talk with "Acid Tongue" Olivia. At least the old mayor would just pretend to be selectively deaf, but no such luck with our new one. I hear the mayor hesitate for a moment, but to his credit he continues to stride onwards as the residents turn to greet us. A soft smile from Dotty, nod from Fang, Cube waves at us. Punchy mimes lowering a pair of sunglasses at the mayor, while Olivia fixes him with one of her patented judgemental stares.

"Sorry for the wait, everybody," I say, smiling and waving to everyone as we reach the plaza centre, and I wave the mayor forward. "But no need to worry, the mayor's here."

The mayor steps forwards gingerly, shoulders as hunched as they could, and gives the assembled residents a tentative wave. _He looks ready to fall apart at any second. I'd better make this quick before we have a repeat of yesterday evening._ I think, pulling the cloth off the package, the small sapling's leaves gleaming in the light of the sun. I shoved the sapling into the mayor's hands, causing him to snap to attention.

"All right then Mr. Mayor. For this ceremony, you're going to place this sapling in the planter in the middle of the plaza." I lean in and whisper, "It's meant to represent where everything started and how far you'll have come when you look at it. It's a tradition that dates back to the first Animal settlements, so it's very important to us."

"Right," He mutters back, looking like I just handed him a bomb. "No pressure or anything."

The mayor stands up ramrod straight, like a soldier in a parade, and begins to march over to the square planter filled with loamy soil in the middle of the plaza. It… isn't a great look in all honesty, and I can see gears turning in a few residents' heads as they try to figure out whether this is meant to be rude, respectful, or a bit of both. _Maybe I should've done calming exercises with him beforehand._

"I do love a man in uniform." I hear Olivia drawl, leaning over to Fang, who snorts loudly enough for the mayor to hear. I almost have a small heart attack as he pauses, but he manages to take the last few steps to it without issue. As he leans down to place the sapling in the soil, I take the opportunity to shoot Olivia an angry glare. _That was uncalled for, and you know it._ She just coolly stares back at me, pressuring me with her disdain until I'm forced to turn away in defeat. When I turn back to the mayor, he's turned around and looking at me like a lost child, nodding at the hole in the soil.

I flash him a thumbs up, and he gets the message, rolling his eyes before turning back to the planter and gently placing the sapling in the hole . _It's okay Isabelle, deep breaths._ I remind myself, the mayor huffing and puffing with a few sighs of exasperation as he butchers our traditional ceremony. At least he's trying. I mean, this is first morning living amongst Animals and he's taking part in a ceremony that I haven't seen since I was a child. It's fine. Right?

Fortunately, my preparations in the plaza seem to have paid off, as the sapling planting ends sooner than I expect, and he stands back up. The residents all applaud, some of them even warmly, and I sigh deeply, realizing I was holding my breath for the last few seconds. The mayor gives me an uncertain smile, and I reply with a thumbs up and my most practiced encouraging smile. Then Punchy speaks up, cupping his mouth and yelling a single word that makes my blood run cold.

"Speech!"

The mayor goes as stiff as a statue, smile fixed on his face as his eyes widen and begin to dart around. I try and step in to cut Punchy off, but his idea seems to tickle most of the residents so much that they all begin to join in. Despite my limp protests that the mayor might be too tired for a speech right now, they all begin to chant "Speech! Speech! Speech", leaving me with little choice but to turn to the mayor and mouth "Improvise!"

"Ah, uh, where to begin." He stammers. His hands are shaking as he clasps them together, then puts them on his hips, then rubbing his arms. _Not good._ I flash back to middle-school, the contradicting sensations of feeling like I was too hot while the slightest gust was like an icy wind. It's strange, remembering the experience so vividly and yet watching it happen in front of my very eyes as if I'm barely even there. Is this what it's like to watch someone else falling apart? Is this what everyone in seventh grade saw on that rainy day? _Snap out of it. He needs you right now._

I clench my fists. One step forward. Our eyes meet, one panicked, the other concerned. The residents are whispering around me, but it's as if they're a million miles away. I feel as if I'm in two worlds, part of me here in the plaza while another part of me has returned to the classroom. I know what he's about to do, I know I have to stop it, but my own panic slips in from the past like a ghost, rendering me silent. The mayor looks away. He runs.

The residents all gasp, a few calling out to the mayor as he begins to sprint away at full speed. My own voice finally returns to me and I join in with the others, but I know it's too late. We all fall silent as the figure of the mayor recedes into the distance, a silence punctuated by the wind gently scattering brown leaves across the plaza floor. The whole incident must have only taken less than a minute, but somehow I feel completely drained.

"At least this mayor keeps his speeches short and concise." Olivia says. I wheel on her, feeling a rush of anger, but Olivia once again stonewalls me with that air of polite but firm dispassion. She looks me right in the eyes, daring me to challenge her, to say something, anything. So many words rush through my head, but I just look down at the ground instead. "Though it seems they share a predisposition to toss their duties on the lap of the poor beleaguered secretary."

"That's not true!" Dotty shouts, stepping forwards and coming to my rescue. "The mayor's clearly under a lot of stress, we should have been more aware of that, right Isabelle?"

"I, uh, yeah," I mutter, every cell in my body yelling at me to disengage, to do anything possible to remove myself from the confrontation. "I should… I should go find the mayor."

Dotty nods understandingly, but I can see the disappointment in her eyes. _Like mayor, like secretary I guess All of you deserve better than us._ I think glumly, turning away and heading in the direction the mayor had run. I don't feel tired anymore; I'm still riding high from that surge of anger, but I'm not exactly upset either. I'm just… I'm not sure how I feel. Disappointed? Sad? _Alone._ I think, turning back to look at the residents who are now talking amongst each other. _I feel alone._

* * *

"Should've stayed and taken charge of the situation," I chide myself a few minutes later, all the ways things could have gone so much better lining up to let themselves known now that I'm in a more calm state of mind. "Say something about the mayor being tired, tell them that I'll talk to the mayor about seeing everyone on a one-to-one basis. But no, off you go, leave it to them to sort things out."

Talking to myself has always been one of the worst habits I picked up from long midnight shifts as secretary, and the fact that it's happening as I walk across the woods doesn't do anything to improve my sour mood. As I reach a small clearing, I catch a glimpse of a monarch butterfly, its wings framed against the gentle sunlight. It's beautiful, enough of a sight to make me stop and watch its slow journey from flower to flower.

Stopping does help. I'm still in low spirits, but it does feel like I can start sorting my thoughts out for a change instead of tumbling down an endless hill of beating myself up about something. What was it that book had said? Count to ten? _One, two, three… Huh. I guess it really does work._ It had always seemed silly to me that most of the book's advice on managing panic was something that I could never remember while panicking. _Better late than never, I guess_.

The butterfly flutters out of sight, and I take in my surroundings. For all Tortimer's faults, it's hard to deny how much of a driving force he was with enacting the environmentalist policies that have made Animal Town as green as it is now. The beautiful greenery is now coated in a shade of browns, oranges, and yellows, with a carpet of leaves stretching out all around me. In the distance, I hear the crashing of waves breaking against the cliff at the edge of the town, and begin to make my way towards it, the dead leaves soon giving way to grassy rock.

I'm not sure why the sight of the sea takes my breath away, it looks the same as it always has, but a moment of awe hits me regardless. Maybe it's because I've spent most of my life in a cramped office the last few days, but there's something so… infinite about the ocean, an invisible line that seems to be the only thing holding the sky and sea apart. _How long has it been since I even came to the coast?_ One month? Two? I'm not even sure if I've come here once this year.

I'm suddenly enveloped in a memory, sights and sounds long past wrapping me up in a tight embrace. Digby giggles as the waves chase his feet, skipping around the tide with his arms outstretched, a face beaming with pure unbridled joy. Mom watches him play, close enough to jump in if he falls into the tide, basking in his glow. Dad and I sit on a nearby outcropping, asking him about his university life. I wish I could have asked him more questions, learned more about his life before he… My vision begins to blur, warm trembling tears rising up from the bottom of my vision.

"Keep it together Isabelle." I say, wiping the tears from my eyes with the back of a paw. I hate crying, even though it always makes me feel better afterwards. There's something about crying that makes me feel guilty, all sorts of awkward memories bubbling up from the back of my mind. _I've already got enough on my plate without having to remember all the times I messed up._ I angrily wipe my eyes harder, leaving them feeling tender and probably looking all gross and puffy.

Letting out a heavy sigh, I look to the side, and see the mayor also standing on the cliff, about fifty feet to my right. _Did he see me crying?_ It feels like someone dumped a bucket of cold water over my head. No, he's staring out into the distance, there's no sign that he noticed me at all. Seeing the mayor, I remember why we're standing out on the cliff in the first place. I feel like I should be angry, but the last few minutes of introspection have wrung me emotionally dry. With heavy feet, I walk over to the mayor. He doesn't turn to look at me, even when I'm standing right next to him.

"Mr. Mayor?" I ask. The mayor shifts a little, but still stares straight ahead.

"I'm not cut out for mayor," He finally replies. "I should've realized this was a farce from the beginning and saved you the embarrassment."

"Hey now," I say, stepping forward and placing a paw on his arm. "None of that, okay? Look, I can talk to the residents about the situation, tell them you were fatigued from a long trip or something. You won't have to make a speech this time. I'm sure everyone still wants to get to know you, and they won't mind if you just go around and talk to them personally instead."

"But I'll still have to do a speech at some point." He doesn't even look at me as he replies, just continues to stare at the sea. _You know, an apology wouldn't go unappreciated._ I suddenly think, and quickly push the thought out of my mind. The mayor needs me to be supportive right now. I don't want to be confrontational with him, and I'm sure it wouldn't help anyway.

"Well, yes, there will be small festivals and a few ceremonies that you'll need to attend and give a short speech for," I say, letting go of his arm. "That being said, nobody has an easy time with their first day, and I should have done more to prepare you for the possibility of a speech. It's like I said at the office though, I'll be here to help you every step of the way. The residents are all very understanding as well. It's all about perspective, we have to think of this like a small bump in the road rather than some kind of major setback."

"I don't know if I can do it," He finally turns to look at me. "I'm not the kind of man you think I am, not the kind of mayor this town deserves. I'm not confident, or strong, or clever. It was stupid of me to say yes, I'm not-"

"Mayor." I cut him off firmly, feeling my frustration finally bubble over. "It doesn't matter whether or not you're the kind of mayor this town deserves. What matters is you're the mayor this town has. Being the mayor means more than just being committed to your job, it means being committed to the people. You made a promise to us, to me, when you agreed to become mayor. Don't think you can just walk away from that promise less than a day later because you made a mistake. Even though you're a total stranger, we're prepared to put our trust in you. The least you could do is put your trust in us, even if it's just a little."

My whole body shakes, my breathing ragged. _I said what had to be said. So why do I feel like I want to crawl into a hole and never be seen again?_ I hate it. I hate how I'm always like this. The mayor stares at me, stunned, his eyes wide. I turn away, unable to face him, focusing my attention on the waves breaking against the walls of the cliff. _Count to ten. Just count… One, two… One…_

"I'm sorry," I hear the mayor say, his voice strangely distorted. I turn back, catching a glimpse of his eyes shimmering with tears as he looks away. "I wasn't thinking. Stupid of me."

"You're…" I sigh. "You're not stupid. You just need to put a little more trust in me. We also need to work on your troubles with stress management, but we can take our time with that one." I pause, looking intently at the mayor. He still keeps his face turned away, the only sign of movement being the heavy rise and fall of his shoulders. _Well, you're in it now, might as well see how far you can get._ "I also think it might help if you were a bit more open with me. I mean, I was in such a tired state that I ended up opening up to you more than I intended last night, but you never even gave the barest hint about yourself. Well, other than your lack of political science experience and threadbare knowledge of Animal culture."

"Well, do I need to give you my life story?" He glances over at me.

"No," I allow, meeting his eyes. "But this is what I'm talking about. You seem to shift the conversation away from anything that might reveal too much about you, and just now you noticeably clammed up when I went for a more direct approach."

"It's not…" The mayor stumbles to a halt, raising a hand to his chin as he seems to ponder his next words. "It's not that I'm embarrassed about my past. Well, I'm not embarrassed about most of it, and there's nothing I'd actively like to hide. I just… Don't really like to talk about it is all. Thank you for believing in me. I promise I'll work harder to trust you and strive to improve myself as mayor."

It all sounds too scripted, too much like an apology with no substance. But, it's something, and I don't want to push the issue any further. _I mean, it's not like Rome was built in a day. He just needs a bit of space for now, I'm sure he'll open up in time._ I reach into my bag, pulling out a notepad and a pen. _I'll give him some short-term goals to work on, and draft out longer-term projects while I'm in the office._

"Okay," I say, beginning to write down notes on the paper. "Well, now seems like as good a time as any to talk about your mayoral duties. Or, to be more specific, getting a permit for public works projects and ordinances, which are going to be the two main duties outside of broader mayoral obligations."

"I need a permit for performing my duties? Wasn't that what the paperwork earlier was for?" The mayor asks. I sigh and let out a little laugh, thinking back to the late evening of seemingly endless forms. _If only._

"Not quite. About a decade back, there was a major scandal where corrupt mayors would ensure they got elected through bribery, and then use their position to do things like erect statues of themselves, or make the townsfolk perform labour for their own profit. After that, the government passed a law stripping mayors of most powers until they get a legally recognized 100% approval rating in their town, which has to be confirmed by the town residents."

"An 100% approval rating?" He frowns. "Seems like a bit of a stringent requirement if that's the only way I can actually do my job."

"Oh, no Mr. Mayor." I laugh, after a brief moment of confusion. "Approval ratings here aren't quite like what they are in human communities. It's mostly based on weekly polls conducted with the residents, asking them how they feel about you as mayor. If this were a big city, then it might take us months and months of hard work, research, and canvassing to achieve 100% approval, but with a town as small as this, if we really put our hearts into it, I think we can make 100% by the end of the month."

The mayor doesn't reply right away. He gives me a forced smile, and then looks out at the ocean. I wonder what he sees in that horizon, what thoughts are going through his head right now. A frown suddenly crosses over his features, before softening into an incredibly melancholic expression. I find myself struck with how little I know about him.

"Are you okay Mr. Mayor?" I ask, causing him to snap to attention. "You seem a little…"

"Yeah, I'm fine," He says, unconvincingly, turning away from the sea. "We should probably get on with this approval rating then. No time like the present, after all."

He lets out an awkward laugh that dies away almost the moment it leaves his mouth. I try to give him a reassuring smile, but it's hard not to feel some concern. A question I had been too stressed to give thought to suddenly hits me. _Why is he so insistent that he shouldn't be the mayor? It seemed like he was excited when we spoke over the phone. Unless…_ I shake my head. He doesn't seem like a bad person, and he does at least seem to have some kind of desire to help the town. I'll just look into it later, when I have the time.

 _And what are you going to do if you find out something you didn't want to?_

It's a good question. One I'm terrified I don't have an answer for.


	3. Chapter 3: A New Day

Chapter 3: A New Day

"What is this?" I asked, taking the torn off piece of paper Isabelle had been writing something on for the last minute. It looked to be a list of sorts, neatly organized in Isabelle's impeccable handwriting.

 _Ways to help mayor's approval rating_

 _Talking to residents (helping them out)_

 _Getting a proper house_

 _Helping out with the museum_

 _Keeping the town tidy_

"Think of it as a mayoral to-do list," She replied once I'd finished reading, stowing the notepad away in her bag. "Our short-term strategy for getting 100% approval. There are a few other things to consider, but these are the ones we should probably focus on for now. I'd recommend starting off with going around town and formally introducing yourself to the residents."

"After what happened at the plaza?" I felt a twinge of unease at the idea of having to look the residents in the eye right after abandoning the speech in such a spectacular fashion. Still, if Isabelle was behind me, I felt like I could at least scrape up a small pocket of confidence to go on.

"Well, you'll have to talk to them sooner or later, and it's just going to get worse if you put it off, Mr. Mayor," Isabelle said. "I'm going to head back to the office to get a few more forms submitted. If you need any help or advice regarding the approval rating, you should find me there."

"Oh. Uh. Yeah." I stuttered, a tiny sigh escaping my lips like air from a balloon. I could have asked her to join me right there and then, and I'm sure Isabelle would have said yes. But I could already imagine the amount of work she had before her, and the last thing I wanted was for that work to pile up just so she could hold my hand. Just as she turned to leave, I stopped her with the kind of strangled cry that often came from remembering something important.

"How am I going to find the residents?" I asked when Isabelle whipped around in shock. "I know the map has their houses listed, but what if they're not at their house?"

"Well," Isabelle considered the question for a moment, paw on chin. "Lots of residents do like to go shopping every day, so I'm sure you'd find somebody at one of the stores in Main Street. Otherwise, if you follow the river you'd be sure to find someone getting a bit of morning fishing done. Beyond that you'll just have to channel your inner detective and try to sleuth it out."

There wasn't much to add to that without making it incredibly obvious I was dragging on the conversation just to keep Isabelle around, so I sighed and muttered something that could have passed as a "Well I'll be alright."

With a parting thumbs-up, Isabelle left me standing at the cliff, huddled against the cold like the lonely awkward fool I was. Clouds slowly crept across the sky to blot out the sun, shadows stretching across the field like bony black fingers. Suppressing a shiver at the ominous sight, I decided to start walking and find out where my legs happened to take me.

* * *

If there was one thing I felt thankful for, it was that there was something therapeutic about the town's general arrangement. Back in the city, it always felt like I was treading on someone's property, and what was meant to be a relaxing walk around the block would become an exercise in avoiding eye-contact and power walking past any and all houses. Animal Town was different, for one thing it wasn't really like any town I'd known before; if I were to compare it to anything, it would be one of those medieval villages we learned about in history class, though all the houses were spaced apart so far it was more like an incredibly antisocial medieval village. I wondered if Animals were very particular about their privacy.

Still, no houses meant I could take my time and let my thoughts actually wander for a change. It was then that I realized how ridiculous this all was. Here I was, a Human mayor with no credentials or experience working what might be the smallest town on the planet, with a constituency of Animals. I wondered what Alice would think if she heard about where I ended up. I still had her hastily scribbled phone-number somewhere in my suitcase… But no. I shook my head, pushing the unbidden memories back into the recesses of my mind. I wasn't quite ready to go back to those days just yet.

"Will you ever be ready?" I muttered to nobody in particular. I wandered through the forest for what felt like an hour, though it can't have been more than ten minutes at most. After living for so long in a city that seemed to never sleep, the feeling of being well and truly alone was… different. It wasn't a bad feeling, in fact there was something almost relaxing about it. It was as if I was somehow detached from the world, free to drift along at my leisure like some kind of cloud. In time, I wound to a halt in front of a wooden fence, the train-tracks carving a line through the border of the forest and the hill beyond that housed the shopping street.

The train.

I felt the icy water of reality wash over my idle daydreams. I wasn't free to walk idly through life without a care in the world. I was this town's mayor, with all the duties and responsibilities that came with it. And there was the promise, the one I had made to Isabelle and also the bet I placed with Rover… Had that really only been last night? Had I really not even spent a whole day in this town?

The rails began to shudder, I heard the train approaching from my right. It came hurtling past, a cascade of banging steel and groaning engines. I hadn't even spent more than a day here, and I was already showing the world what a failure I was. Could I do a year? As mayor? I watched the train disappear from view, a hollow screech resounding in the distance as it began to pull into the station. If I waited for nightfall, grabbed my case, ran to the station and jumped on-board at the last second, if I never came back, did my best to avoid ever seeing Rover or Isabelle or anyone even remotely related to this town ever again…

 _Could I live with that?_

I looked up at the sky. It was a question familiar to me, the answer even more so. I knew the steps to this dance, the cycle I would go through. Jump into the train, heart thumping in my chest. The wave of shame and depression would come soon after, once the adrenaline died down. Perhaps I would cry myself to sleep that night in the train, or perhaps I would have run dry by then, empty eyes staring back at me from the window reflection. The first few nights would be the hardest, the pangs of memories intertwined with regret. Then, it would become easier, and easier, until that sharp pain would become nothing more than a dull aching throb in my chest, subdued enough to lock away and never think about again. I saw Isabelle in my mind, shadows under her eyes as she sifted through stacks of papers, looking for someone, _anyone_ who might help, cold cup of coffee to one side as the clock struck midnight.

 _Could you live with that?_

 _Even though you're a total stranger, we're prepared to put our trust in you. The least you could do is put your trust in us, even if it's just a little._ Isabelle's words echoed in my mind. The longer I spent away from the town, the duller the heartache would be. But wasn't the opposite just as true? Each moment I spent here, etching all the little details of life here into my memories, would make the moment of separation hurt more and more. It felt like no matter where I went, what I did, I was destined to end up in abject misery. _Is there really any point in trying?_

"Um, excuse me?" A voice called out to my side. I turned to see a dog, wearing a beanie and green anorak, small travelling case with wheels at his side. He gave me a look that suggested he was already regretting drawing the attention of a dishevelled possibly dangerous Human. I considered the idea of calmly explaining to the dog that I was actually quite harmless, realized that would likely solidify the dog's less than glowing opinion of me, and instead stared back at him in uncomfortable silence.

"Are you, um, the new mayor?" The dog asked, looking ready to bolt at any second.

"Oh, yes. That's me. The mayor." I replied, feeling a similar sense of wanting to walk away from the conversation as soon as possible. The first conversation of the day with someone who wasn't my secretary, and I was already hopelessly out of my depth. Fortunately, the dog breathed a sigh of relief, apparently I'd given him the right answer.

"I'm Digby." He said with a smile. _Wait, am I supposed to know who this is?_ I thought to myself. There was something undeniably familiar about Digby, but I couldn't remember Isabelle ever mentioning anyone by that name. Digby's smile fell as I gave him a blank look. "Did… Did Isabelle not mention me?"

"I don't think so," I said with an apologetic shrug. "To be fair, we've only known each other for…" I checked my watch. "About ten hours."

"Oh! Oh. Sorry, I didn't realize things were so hectic here." Digby said, rubbing the back of his head with a sheepish grin. "Well, I'm Digby, Isabelle's twin brother. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr…?" He extended a paw towards me.

"Nathan." I answered, leaning down and shaking the paw. Now that I thought about it, I vaguely recalled Isabelle mentioning having a brother. Looking at Digby, I now saw how similar he was to his sister. "Just Nathan's fine."

"I'm really looking forward to seeing you breathe some new life into this town," Digby smiled. "I remember Tortimer, the mayor before you, being the mayor even back when I was a pup. It's not that I don't appreciate everything he's done for the town, but Animal Town's needed a fresh perspective for years. What made you interested in applying, if that's not too much of a personal question?"

"Ah," Fortunately, I was already well acquainted with the mental gymnastics when it came to making something up on the spot. "Animal culture, really. I mean, not knowing the culture, being from a Human city and all that. I wanted to understand Animal culture in a meaningful way, and happened to hear Animal Town was looking for a mayor. So here I am." I tried my best to sound as natural and convincing as possible, hoping he didn't notice the beads of sweat rising on my forehead.

"I'm happy to hear that," Digby replied. "I've actually worked quite closely with a Human colleague at work, and I think it was a great experience for all of us. Speaking of, I should get going, but take my card. I'll be working out of Nook's Homes, so do drop by if you ever want to chat."

I looked down at the card Digby had handed me. "Happy Home Academy: A Happy Home Is Where A Happy Heart Is", said one side, while the other read "Digby: Happy Home Designer, Home Design Adviser". I looked back at Digby as he rested a paw on the handle of his travelling case.

"How long have you been working at this academy?" I asked.

"Hm? Oh, I joined right after graduating from high school, so about six years now."

"Why do you do it?" I asked, not sure where my curiosity was coming from. "Not in the sense of not liking your job or anything like that. Just, six years isn't something to sniff at, especially for a first job. What… is it that keeps you going?"

"That's certainly a deep question," Digby said, taking a moment to consider his answer. "I think… I still remember this particular day, when I was still getting the hang of being a Happy Home Designer. Honestly, I really thought about quitting. It's a demanding job and my boss was, well is, always pretty hard on me. So, late one Saturday, I decided to go and leave a letter tendering my resignation. But, when I get to the door of the office we worked out of at the time, I found the light still on.

"Lyle, my boss, had been working all through Friday evening and Saturday, trying to find a way to help this one Animal who was having a lot of trouble with their new home. Well, I didn't know that at first. First, I came in and tried to explain to Lyle why I was planning on quitting, and we started talking, really talking as a result. Don't tell Isabelle, but there was definitely a lot of melancholy drinking involved. I found out the reason he was driving me, and himself, so hard was that he wanted to do everything in his power to ensure the clients left our service genuinely feeling happy.

"We had a productive discussion about the merits and drawbacks of driving ourselves too hard, and I think it helped that Lyle started going to therapy soon after our conversation, but I'll never forget the light in Lyle's eyes when he talked about helping our clients. That was… a big revelation for me. I thought back to when I first joined, why I became a designer in the first place. It's about the Animals, I guess, corny as that might sound. Knowing that my work is helping to enrich the lives of others is just a really nice feeling."

"Even if you might never meet them again?" I asked.

Digby smiled. "Just because I don't see them again doesn't mean they stop existing." Closing his eyes, sighed contently, evidently lost in happy memories. Then, his eyes snapped open, and he gave me an apologetic look. "Oh, sorry! Lyle always says I have a tendency to get lost in my own memories. I hope I haven't bored you at all!"

"It's fine." I said with a small smile. _Definitely Isabelle's twin brother._

"I really should be going," Digby said, pulling his travelling case forwards. "Thank you for taking the time to listen to me talk, next time I hope I can be the one to learn more about you." With a bow, he headed off towards Main Street. I watched him go in silence, deep in my thoughts. I thought back to how the residents had come out to greet a stranger even in the middle of the night. How Isabelle had, and was still, working hard on helping me with my paperwork. The gift of Dotty's scarf, which I was still wearing. All the ways in which the Animals here had done their best to make me feel welcome.

 _Just because I don't see them again doesn't mean they stop existing._

Maybe I could live with it. Running away like I always did, finding somewhere else to repeat the cycle again. I wasn't a good person. I knew that. I probably deserved to have a miserable life, after everything I had done, all the people I had hurt out of a selfish desire for the safety I could never achieve. Everyone I had wronged was still out there somewhere, perhaps holding onto the scars of my actions as much as I did.

 _The least you could do is put your trust in us._

Maybe I wasn't worth the effort of being mayor. But that didn't mean the Animals here weren't.

* * *

The cold light of morning did Main Street no favours. The abandoned buildings stood in stark contrast to those that still had occupants, grim spectres in what would otherwise be a rather homey shopping street. Nook's Homes caught my eye, and I remembered Nook had asked me to drop by to discuss matters of payment, but I wasn't exactly in the mood to talk about money. I never really was when Nook was involved, looking back on it. My other options were a post office (No need to mail anything and I somehow doubted there was any mail for me), a rickety shed with a hand-painted sign marking it as "Nookling Junction" (First question, relatives of Nook? Second question, why junction?), and the biggest building apparently housed the "Able Sisters", which looked to be some kind of tailor.

I almost considered heading into the Able Sisters shop, thinking that I could do with a fresh change of clothes, before realizing I didn't have any money on me. _A mayor with no money to buy anything in his own town, what a sight you must be._ Before I turned to leave the street, seeing that there were no Animals out and about, I spotted another building. It was separated from the other, more clustered, buildings by a small pond, with Greek architecture that made it look as if someone hadn't gotten the memo about Main Street's more contemporary architectural standards.

 _Do Animals also have Freemasons?_ I wondered to myself as I drifted over to the imposing building. The entrance opened up into an airy chamber, the linoleum tiling along the floor and brick walls giving it an oddly retro feel that clashed with the Hellenic exterior. Walking inside a little further, I saw two stained-glass windows on the wall across from me, each adorned with an owl motif, flanking a massive baroque clock. Everything served to make me suspect that two architects had been hired to work on this building, each with a vastly different image of what a "museum" was meant to look like.

Looking around, I saw there was nobody inside the chamber other than me, though there were four entrances in the form of open archways that led to other wings of the museum. the only sound to be heard was the echoing ticking of the clock. _Is it all right for me to just… wander around? Should I come back another time?_ A notice on the wall caught my eye.

 _Dear visitors,_

 _I am currently out of town, giving a lecture at Faraway Museum. As such, I will be gone from Monday to Wednesday, though the museum will be open for all visitors in the meantime. I look forward to being of assistance once again upon my return._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Blathers_

"Well, that explains why it's a little empty." I said to nobody in particular. There was something about the emptiness of the museum, the silence that somehow resounded across the grand chamber. The strange sense of displacement, made it feel as if I was one step away from walking into another time entirely... It made me feel incredibly lonely. _Ah, the museum._ I remembered.

A busy Sunday afternoon in the city. Eight years old. Dragged along to some art museum I wasn't interested in. Even now, I still remain uncertain as to why I stopped at that particular painting. A woman, lying nude in a desert and taking up most of the painting's frame, her chest wide open with her rib-cage making a strange canyon, though it wasn't violent in any way; I found there was something… strangely natural about the whole scene that gave me pause. It was then that I realized I had been separated from everyone else, and was stranded all alone in the middle of a museum, surrounded by strangers. Alice had found me curled up in a corner of the museum, sobbing in the belief that I would grow old and die, lost and forgotten, in the art museum.

I sighed, pulling myself out of the haze of childhood memories. I'd spent too many days lost in the sea of the better days behind me, crawling back into reality only when I absolutely needed to. I suddenly remembered it was Alice once again who had found me, helping to pull me out of my apathetic melancholy and possibly saving my life in the process. Feeling a twinge of guilt at having left her in the dark for some time, I reconsidered my decision not to call. Shouldn't I let at least _someone_ know I was still alive, out there in the world, far away though I might be from those who knew me?

The chamber began to take on an ominous air, that strange crawling sensation one feels when standing in an empty echoing room for too long. I went through the closest archway, and found myself bathed in the rippling halogen glow of a massive aquarium tank. The massive container took up an entire wall of the room, with dozens of fish swimming around a simulacrum of the seafloor. To my surprise, there was somebody already in the room, sitting on a public sofa on the other side of the room, facing the aquarium.

"Hey, what's up mayor, mrmpht." The figure said. It was the cat with the heavy-lidded eyes I'd last seen at the plaza. I approached cautiously, raising a hand in greeting. In truth, I wasn't entirely sure how to read him, though it wasn't as if I'd had much luck with anyone else in this town. At the very least, he didn't seem threatening. In fact, he seemed a little too relaxed, the type of conversation partner who would only ever be aware of half of what you said.

"Hey… Uhh…" I trailed off, inquiring the cat's name with a raise of the eyebrows. The cat stared back at me with a smile, and we stood there, staring at each other in silence. I sighed, sensing that this cat wasn't going to make conversation easy for me.

"Nathan." I said, placing a hand over my chest as way of introduction.

"Word." The cat replied, placing his hands behind him and leaning back in the chair. After another moment of silence, I decided to join him on the sofa, and took a seat next to the cat. A filter inside the tank burbled, bubbles issuing forth, causing the fish to scatter.

"Six minutes." The cat suddenly said.

"Pardon?"

"Six minutes," He repeated, turning to me. "Filter makes a noise every six minutes, without fail. I've timed it, mrmpht."

"Oh." I said, unsure of how I should reply. The cat was smiling proudly, so I gave him a reassuring nod, which seemed to be enough to satisfy him.

"Punchy." He said, turning his gaze back to the aquarium. "That's me."

"Right," _Animal names really are something._ "Well, Punchy. I uhhh, hmm." I stared at my hands, feeling a lump in my throat. I had never been very good at apologies, even in such a low-stakes environment. _Just… Say you're sorry. That's all you need to do._

"The plaza, uh, what happened there…" I muttered. "It was… Unbecoming of me to run off like that. I'm meant to be the mayor, and so I should act as a model for everyone, instead of… Well, doing what I did this morning."

Punchy didn't reply at first. He simply stared at me, and I shuffled uncomfortably under his gaze. His face gave nothing away, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips that could have been my imagination playing tricks on me. I suddenly found myself wondering if I simply couldn't read Animal faces. My thoughts shifted to wondering whether that was racist, and then to the question of why this cat was staying so frustratingly silent.

"Okay." Punchy said, and patted my arm.

"Okay?"

"Yeah."

"Hm," I felt nonplussed, and strangely dissatisfied. "I was expecting a bit more of… I'm not sure, holding me to account for my actions?"

"Well, that was your apology, right?"

"I mean, yes, but-"

"So it's fine then," Punchy smiled. "An apology's an apology. If you were being sincere, that's fine. If you weren't, then I won't know until you do something that proves it. So, no point in worrying, mrmpht."

"I… hm." I couldn't think of any immediate arguments, and it seemed Punchy was being honest, so I fell silent and looked over to the fish tank. Another moment of silence, enough so that I could hear Punchy's soft breathing mingling with my own. I felt the cat lean against me, softly, the abruptness of it causing me to jolt and cry out.

"What's wrong?" Punchy asked, shifting back to his previous seating position.

"Sorry," I said apologetically. "I just wasn't expecting it."

"Do humans not really touch each other?"

"I mean, sort of? We'll touch regularly if we're… intimate I suppose, but strangers rarely touch each other beyond the introductory handshake."

"That seems… sad."

"Do Animals normally touch each other?"

"Yeah… For me, at least, I feel at ease just… feeling someone being there, mrmpht."

"Oh." I felt somewhat ashamed at having warded him off so brusquely. With slow, uncertain movements, I lifted an arm and carefully lowered it around Punchy's shoulder. He smiled gently, and leaned into me, and so we sat, together, waiting for the tank's refrain of bubbles.

"You're from the city, aren't you?" Punchy asked, the words vibrating against me as he spoke.

"That's right." I answered.

"I'm from the city as well. I like it there. Most of my friends are there, and I'd go to art installations and festivals all the time. I love the… the sense that I'm one amongst many, you know? Like, I'm a tree in this big forest, and we're all connected with roots down in the earth."

Punchy sighed. "But… Sometimes it gets to be too much. The city never stops and… It's just too much for me, I need to empty my mind. That's why I like it here too. I like a museum where I can be alone, just me and my thoughts." He turned to me, and smiled. "But I'm happy you're here as well, mrmpht."

"I'm glad I could be here to help." I replied, giving Punchy a little squeeze. I was surprised at how… good it felt to share space with someone, unabashedly celebrating each other's presence in a quiet but deeply affecting manner. The bubbles issued forth, and I heard Punchy sigh contentedly next to me, shifting a little and letting my arm fall back to the side, so that we were simply shoulder to shoulder.

"Do you have a question?" He suddenly asked.

"A question?"

"Like, a big one. I think everyone has a big question in their hearts, even if they don't think about it normally. A big question with a big answer, one you can spend your entire life thinking about, mrmpht."

"Being in a museum puts you in a philosophical mood, doesn't it?" I asked with a smile.

Punchy smiled back. "So, what's your big question?" He asked me.

I thought about it for a moment. "Can people really discern the taste of good wine? Or does it all taste like shoe polish and they pretend otherwise?"

Punchy nodded sagely. "Good question."

"What about you?"

"How many days can you get away with not washing pants before someone actually notices?"

We shared a good laugh.

"What's your real question?"

I stared at the aquarium, at the shadows of the fish rippling along the surface of the tank. "Does it ever get any easier?"

Punchy looked over, and gently placed a paw over my hand.

"You?" I asked.

"I'm scared I'll never find a question worth answering."

Together, in silence, we watched the fish and felt the warmth of the other's touch.


	4. Chapter 4: When You Thought of Me Last

Chapter 4: When You Thought of Me Last

"So, how is he fitting in?" Digby takes a brief sip of his coffee, basking in the bright light of an unnaturally sunny autumn day, perhaps our last before winter truly sets in.

"He's…" I mask my hesitation by taking a sip of my own coffee. It's not great, but we came to this café in the middle of the city more for the atmosphere and memories than any desire for quality. There's something about sitting out in a terrace, the sunlight dancing across my features, that puts me in a good mood. "He's doing alright."

All around us, the city hustles and bustles with an almost feverish energy. I remember being so overwhelmed the first time I went to the a big city, all the sights and sounds jostling for space in front of me. I'd eventually gotten used to it, well, _had_ to get used to it since the university was located right in the middle of a teeming metropolis, but my heart would always yearn for the quiet contemplation of the countryside. That being said, I'm not one to turn down the occasional day trip.

"Just alright?" Digby grins, raising an eyebrow. "Hasn't intimidated anyone with his colossal stature then?"

"The mayor is friendly enough," I retort, maybe a little more defensively than I intend. "Even if his legs are… a little on the long side."

Digby laughs at that, and I can't help but chuckle alongside him. I really have missed having Digby here at my side, even if he's usually busy with Happy Home Room business meaning I only get him on the weekends. Definitely beats the sporadic phone calls and occasional letter we'd gotten used to over the last six years. _Has it really been six years since we graduated?_ I can barely even remember what I was like six years ago. Probably terrible.

"But really," Digby puts his cup down and looks at me with concern. "Is everything alright?"

"I mean…" Again, the hesitation. "Yeah, it's all fine. Why?"

"It's…" Digby pauses, waving his hands in a vague gesture. "If it's fine it's fine but… I just hear things, you know?"

"The mayor has been nothing but cordial since he arrived." I snap, somewhat annoyed that Digby wants to bring _this_ up during what I was hoping would be an opportunity to get away from our work lives. "Look, if you're trying to be the protective brother here, I'd rather you stop. I'm a grown adult Digby, I'm more than capable of taking care of myself if need be. That, and I thought you prided yourself on being above spreading rumours."

"They're not rumours Isabelle," Digby insists, leaning across the table. "Nobody knows who this man is! Everyone I've talked to says he rarely talks about his own life, and when I once asked him a simple question of where he was from, he just said he was from a city and made up an excuse about having to be somewhere else when I tried to press him on it."

"So what, you're saying he's untrustworthy because he's a bit of a private person?" I say angrily, feeling the stares of passers-by noticing our altercation and wishing I could be anywhere else.

"This goes beyond being a private person!" Digby exclaims, raising his voice. "Even Punchy says he knows next to nothing about the man, and everyone agrees he's the closest thing to a friend the mayor has. And look, you know I'm not trying to say he's untrustworthy…" He sighs, seeming to deflate a little, and leans back in his chair. "I'm just saying, I'm worried he might not be qualified to be the mayor of Animal Town. Even if he has our best intentions at heart, how can we trust a mayor who refuses to open up to his own constituents? I…"

Digby pauses. I see the concern in his eyes, and realize I'm shaking. I breathe in and out a few times, and he wordlessly asks me if I'm all right, eyebrows rising in concern. I nod, thankful for his understanding. Digby might be a bit of an stuffy and overprotective twin brother at times, but he can be compassionate when he needs to be.

"Sorry." He mumbles, looking down.

"It's…" I sigh. "It's fine. I know it doesn't seem like it on the outside, but we're trying our best. The mayor's working hard at it, we just need to give him time and space to come out of his shell."

"Okay." Digby says, sounding unconvinced. I'm not even sure if I believe my own argument. I still hold onto the hope that in time, the mayor will open up to all of us, but… It's been two weeks now, and he feels just as reticent as that time on the cliff. It hurts to admit, but Digby might have a point. Everyone here seems to be mostly happy with the mayor, but it might be a good idea to discuss this with him.

"Everything alright, purrr?" I hear someone say from behind.

"Yes, fine," I say, hoping to brush the concerned passer-by off, only to turn and see Olivia looking back at me. "Oh! Olivia. I… Hello."

"I'll go pay the bill." Digby says and leaves me alone with Olivia, despite my less than subtle glances begging him to stay.

"Mind if I take a seat?" She asks, sitting down before I can even answer. "You've been avoiding me." Olivia notes. A statement, not a question. Olivia rarely does questions.

"No, I've just…" I begin, and falter. "We agreed to spend some time apart, Liv."

"It's been two months, _Belle_." The way she spits out the nickname hurts more than I expect it to. I do my best to seem firm, though I can't meet Olivia's eyes. Instead, I stare down at my coffee, a murky reflection peering back at me with a sad expression.

"I never even saw you once outside of the planting ceremony," Olivia says, and I hear the pain in her voice, suppressing the urge to reach over and wrap my arms around her. "You've been avoiding me."

"I've been busy," I reply weakly, still staring down as I talk to the coffee cup. "There was the search for a new mayor, and lots of paperwork to get done for Mr. Mayor."

"Still leaving it to the humble secretary to clean up after him," She says, her voice as cool as ice. "I suppose Animal or Human, mayors always stay the same."

I sigh, finally looking up and meeting Olivia's gaze. "I'm not in the mood for this right now Liv. I'm too tired." Olivia's frosty expression melts into a look of concern, and she leans towards me, gently placing a paw over my own. With another sigh, I look back down, though I don't pull my paw back. Conflicting feelings swirl like a tempest inside my heart, the times we shared together flashing through my mind, memories that only mean anything to the two of us. We can feel it, through such a small gesture as a shared look, that deep love we feel for each other. And yet…

"I'm sorry," Olivia whispers, the slightest quiver to her voice, like a violin string pulled taught. "I know I've messed up, I know that. I promise, I'm working on it. I just… We had some good days. Remember the time we went out to that creek in the northern forest? You said you'd never gone on a date like that before, and I was so relieved because it was the same for me."

I don't even need to close my eyes to see it. The soft rustling of grass under our feet, nice and cool from rainfall the day before, a cerulean canvas of sky above our heads. It was that strange, uncertain, but somehow sweet time where we awkwardly bumped into each other while finding our positions in the dance of love, coming to grips with our budding feelings for each other with a brush of the fingers or sideways glance and smile. And now…

I still love Olivia, but after what happened two months ago, it's hard not to feel… Upset? Wounded? _Uncertain._ Maybe that was enough time for me to figure out how to move forwards with Olivia, but I had been so distracted with Tortimer's sudden resignation and the rush to find a new mayor that I'd put it to the back of my mind. _Don't lie, you were secretly glad for the chance to avoid thinking about it, weren't you?_ I hear my own voice ask. _Even now, you're just using the mayor as an excuse to dodge the responsibility of making a decision with Olivia._

"I'm sorry," I say, sliding my paw out from under Olivia's own, standing up so fast that the chair loudly scrapes across the cafe patio. "I do need more time, but… I promise I'll call you soon. And… I'll do my best to stop avoiding you." Reaching over and giving her paw a little squeeze, I turn to where Digby is standing and begin to walk away. Olivia doesn't say anything, doesn't even seem to move, and I can't bring myself to turn around and glance back at her face, to see the expression there.

"I liked those letters you used to send," Digby says when I approach. "Back when you were… y'know."

"I'm sorry Digby," I shake my head as we make our way out of the cafe. "This isn't your problem to solve."

* * *

I stroll idly along the river, lost in my thoughts as usual. I wasn't in the mood to stay any longer in the city after my talk with Olivia, and split off from Digby after he decided to stay a little longer and visit an old friend from his days working in the city. The bright sunny day, which only hours ago had filled me with joy, feels more like a cruel reminder of the conversation I'd had with Olivia.

My melancholy begins to curdle, thickening into a glob of warm anger. I want to just smash something apart, uproot all the trees around me with hitherto unknown monster strength, flip some cars and scare pedestrians for good measure. I want to… Just as soon as it's come, the anger seeps out of me and I feel a wave of tiredness. I was never the best at holding onto anger for very long.

Looking for something to distract my wayward mind, I spot Cube some ways up across the river carefully planting a flower. I've never been quite certain how he pulls it off, but Cube has always had a strange sort of magic in managing to replant a flower and keep it alive for months, sometimes even years.

"What kind of flower, Cube?" I call out to him.

"Bur marigold." Cube shouts back with a smile. "It's for the monarch butterflies, a little goodbye present for their migration, though I might be cutting it a bit close, d-d-dude."

It's always nice to see Cube in his element, quietly confident among all the beloved flowers he dedicates himself to. One of our longest residents, Cube's been living here even before I became secretary. I've often felt a bit bad for him; Tortimer had always been one of the few animals here to truly encourage Cube's passion for horticulture. I make a note in the back of my head to discuss re-establishing the town's horticultural association, which had fallen apart with the sudden departure of its dedicated head. Though we will need to find a new head, since Cube said he never wanted to act in a leadership position. _It might not be a bad idea to ask Cube if he's in contact with any other horticultural associations._

Waving goodbye to Cube and leaving him to his planting, I head in the direction of… Town hall. The inevitable conclusion to my wandering, though not one I'm relishing the arrival of. It's usually a roll of the dice as to whether the mayor would be in town hall or not. The heating in his tent isn't the best, prone to cutting out at the worst of times, and he spends a lot of time just taking a walk across the town or nearby forest, sometimes stopping to talk to residents.

I'm far away enough from town hall for the doubts to start muscling their way into my mind. Why do I defend the mayor so often? It's not as if Nathan isn't trying to learn the ins and outs of being a mayor in an Animal town, and there is the awkward culture-barrier for him to overcome, but… _He's terrible. Just say it. Nice guy, awful mayor._ Tortimer might have been a stuffy relic of "the good old days", but at least he had a word ethic. Nathan's work ethic seems to be gauging my expectations and adapting himself as perfectly as possible to them, like a student just looking to get a passing grade.

 _It's not as if you're any better. Maybe you just defend him so much because he's the same as you. You'll both let someone down when the going gets tough, and…_ Not today, brain. I tap into the tiny remains of anger still bottled at the back of my mind and banish the doubts away like one of those TV exorcists, practically hurling bottles of holy water at presumably haunted walls.

I begin to realize just how much of an emotional wreck I am right now as I approach town hall, and resolve to open the emergency stash of whiskey if the mayor isn't in. Sometimes a secretary deserves a cheat day, and I haven't had the opportunity to really let go since… Long enough that I can't remember, and that's depressing. I practically slam open the door to town hall, only to find the mayor sitting in his chair, quietly sobbing with the lights off.

 _Oh._ He looks as flustered and off-balance as I feel. With gentle movements, I close the door behind me and slowly make my way towards the mayor, who rubs his puffy eyes with a sleeve of a frumpy sweater Dotty knitted for him. I pause a few feet away, and we stare at each other in silence for a while.

"So," I say, resting a hand on the surface of the mayor's counter in what I hope is a casual manner. "Everything okay?"

"It's nothing," He says, to which I quirk an eyebrow. "…Well, it's that.. I don't know if you've heard, but… Punchy said he's moving out by the end of the week."

"Oh mayor…" I walk over and give him a gentle hug. He sniffles and gingerly places an arm around me. "I'm sorry, I know you and Punchy were really close."

"I… Was it something I did? Punchy always seemed like he was having a good time, I don't know why he suddenly decided to leave. Did he ever say anything to you? Maybe he just didn't want to upset me or something, and just kept meeting up with me out of a sense of commitment. "

"Mayor, do you…" Not for the first time, I'm left baffled at how little the mayor seems to know about the town he's meant to be running. "You really don't know the history of Animal Town, do you?"

At least he has the decency to look sheepish. "It may have slipped my mind." He mutters.

"Oh boy," I say, and decide that now is as good a time as any to bust out the backup liquor. "Are you the drinking type, Mr. Mayor?" I ask as I rummage around the bottom filing cabinet where I stash all my emergency supplies.

"Not really."

"Neither am I, outside of a pretty bad month in university." _Where is- Ah, here it is._ I pull out the square-edged bottle of foul brown liquid, along with two somewhat dusty tumbler glasses I'd won at a funfair years ago and a bottle of tap water.

"Is that… Is that whiskey?"

"Yeesh mayor, you sound like a sheltered twelve-year-old drinking soda for the first time in his life. It's fine whiskey, my dad sent it ages ago and I've never had the chance to use it. I'm not sure about the brand… It has a picture of a crying elephant on it, if that makes any difference."

"I'm not sure," The mayor says, shifting in his seat. "I'm not really a hard liquor kind of person."

"Don't worry, just keep adding water until you reach the sweet spot for you," I reply, shaking one of the tumblers at him. "I won't force you to drink any more than you're not comfortable with. I just don't want to be the only person in the room drinking whiskey."

The mayor looks unconvinced, but takes the tumbler and pours himself a dash of whiskey and a liberal serving of water. I pour my own more balanced mix of whiskey and water, and we clink glasses before downing our shots. I was wrong, it's awful whiskey. Or maybe it's actually quite good and the feeling of having a heart attack is part of the experience. The mayor almost retches with a coughing fit, his arms and head looking like they're trying to retract back into the body.

"Another?" I ask. He nods, and we pour and down our shots once more, coughing a little less this time. I quickly pour out a third round, though we take our time with this one, gently sipping at our glasses and waiting for the other to speak. After maybe a minute of drinking in silence, the mayor finally speaks up.

"You asked me about the history of the town. Does it have something to do with Punchy?"

"Right," I nod, taking a quick sip of my lukewarm whiskey. "So, I'm sure you've noticed that Animal Town isn't quite like other Animal settlements."

The mayor stares back at me with a gormless expression, and I roll my eyes. "Well, it is. Most towns and cities were founded in the 1580s, soon after Animals earned legal recognition from the Holy… Roman… Empire… Did they really not teach you any of this in school?"

The mayor shuffled awkwardly in his seat. "We had a choice between cultural studies and Latin, and I heard Latin was an easy credit."

"Well, I'll spare you the premodern history lesson," I sigh, pouring in an extra liberal serving of whiskey. "Suffice to say, Animal Town is a pretty modern settlement even by Animal standards. It was founded in 1957, back when World War II was still pretty heavy on everyone's minds. The town was established with the hope that it could be a place for Animals who were still hurting to get away from the wider world, a peaceful environment for rest and recovery. The town's mostly funded on government subsidies, though they had to cut down on them after the recent recession, which is why we can't provide free housing like we used to.

"But still, we've done what we can to make Animal Town feel like somewhere you can enjoy a fresh start, a new leaf of sorts. Everyone's free to stay as long as they want, and when they feel they're ready to go back, then we'll send them off with a joyous goodbye, though they're free to come back any time they need to. I suppose you could consider it like a huge therapy resort."

"So all the residents here, they have problems?" The mayor asks.

"I don't really know if I'd put it as bluntly as that," I frown. "I won't give any specific examples, each resident will tell you if they feel comfortable about it, but everyone here is going through some kind of difficult period in their lives. It might be mental, it might be physical, it might be social, what's important is that you and I are help them in their time of need."

 _That's why it's important to actually be there for them._ The mayor jumps a little, looking at me in surprise, and I realize I unintentionally spoke my thoughts out loud. Maybe I went at it a little too fast and loose with the whiskey. We lapse back into silence, the only sounds in the room being the rustling of trees outside and the momentary tap of glass on wood as we fidget with our glasses.

"I… I wish I could've gotten to know Punchy better," The mayor suddenly says, staring into space. "I knew he had difficulties, but… After everything you told me, I can't help but wonder how much I really knew him."

"I'm sure he felt the same about you." The whiskey in me replies. The mayor glances at me with an inscrutable look, and I quickly pour myself another shot of whiskey and down it in one go. The roaring heat of the whiskey meets the frosty surge of anxiety halfway, making me want to throw up a little. "Come on mayor, you have _a thing_ about people asking you about your past."

"I do not have _a thing_." The mayor retorts, frowning moodily at his glass before downing it in one go.

"Okay," I snort, a little more sarcasm than I intended slipping out in my tone. "Where are you from, then? You've never told me in the two weeks we've known each other."

"…The city." Comes his terse response, and he reaches for the bottle. I gently slap his hand away.

"Mayor there are like, dozens of cities in the country, and thousands if we're talking globally. I'm also from _the city_ , but I'm pretty certain that doesn't mean you're also from Aberdeen."

"Wait, you're Scottish?"

"Ah, I see that got your attention. I'm not telling you anything more until you tell me where you're actually from."

The mayor lapses into silence. Of course. Of course a simple conversation starter has to feel like pulling teeth. Maybe it's the alcohol burning away that urgent need to be civil drilled into me by years of civil servant courses and a society that sees me as a woman first, Animal second, but I'm genuinely reaching the end of my patience with the mayor. I decide to give it one last go.

"Look, Nathan." I do my best to look him in the eyes. He actually looks up and reciprocates my stare for a change. "I know it isn't easy, suddenly having to bear yourself to the world, or town in this case. Everyone here really does like you, we can tell you're kind and want to do good by us but you're acting more like you're just dropping by for a weekend break, never making any genuine connections with anyone. I don't want to have this conversation again tomorrow." I sigh. "You say you'll do better, and then we don't talk about it until it becomes a problem again. This isn't going to work, Nathan, and you know that as well as I do."

I might be going a little far, but I'm in too deep to stop now. "It's why your approval rating flat-lined at 80% Nathan. They like you as a friend, and that's okay, but they're going to have to respect you as mayor if we're going to make this work. I could accept being reluctant to open up to us for the first few days, I could even understanding wanting to wait a week. But it's been two weeks now, and I really think it's time for you to make a choice. Either you start acting like the mayor of this town, or step down so that we can find someone who will."

He just watches me from the mayor's chair, seeming to shrink into it a little. I realize I'd stood up while I was shouting and lain hands on the counter. In this moment in time it feels like a nothing more than flimsy piece of wood, somehow separating us so far we might as well be looking at each other from across different worlds. Paperwork is strewn all over his desk, most of which he probably hasn't bothered to check. It's then that I notice… A copy of the Resident Registration Form.

I'm not sure what it is that makes me pause, memories of the first night we spent in this office racing through my mind. What is it that's bothering me so much? I pick up the paper, scanning through its contents, looking for a sign, some kind of hint to light the way. It's then that I realize. _The address. That night, when the mayor was filling in the form, he asked me…_

"Mayor…" I ask, a lump suddenly in my throat. "When you were writing your Resident Registration Form, you asked me if it needed your old address. From the city."

I see the mayor freeze, looking like a statue in the gloom, fragmented sunlight dancing across the surface of the tumbler glass. The silence hurts, as does the blank face that still can't conceal the genuine fear I see in his eyes. _Give me an awkward laugh, try and blow it off, convince me I'm making a mistake, making a big deal out of nothing, just… Don't look at me like that, Mr. Mayor…_

"What were you going to write down?" I ask, trying and failing to keep my voice from trembling.

The mayor looks at me sadly. He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, before setting the glass down on the counter and going over to the window. "I told you." He says quietly. "I wasn't really the mayor. It was… I was on the train, just trying to find somewhere to settle down for a bit, and this cat… I took on a bet, I know it was stupid, I just…"

"A bet. This whole time… It was all a…" I try to find the words. "I… I thought you'd just gotten cold feet but… That wasn't even you on the phone, was it?"

"No."

I feel a migraine coming on, probably exacerbated by all the whiskey. I just want to shut myself in a place where nobody can find me and scream until nobody can find me. I can't even tell what I'm feeling anymore; am I angry? Tired? Confused? All these emotions are vying for control, it feels like the world below my feet is about to give way at any moment.

"What was your plan?" I finally say, holding an arm over my eyes to shade them from the now viciously bright sunlight. "Were you just going to lie until you ran out of road, or hope we would stop asking questions if you avoided them long enough? Did you even have a plan, or were you just winging it the whole time?"

The mayor keeps staring out the window. I'm not sure whether I'd prefer him to look at me or keep looking away so that I don't have to face him. Framed in the sunlight, he looks… Terrible. The stubble of the first day I met him has grown into a patchy mess, and parts of his hair are starting to stick up from how little he's washed it. The shadows under his eyes are somehow darker than before, and I remember Fang telling me he would sometimes see the mayor talking a walk at incredibly late hours of the evening.

"I don't know." He mutters. "Like I said, I was tired, just trying to find somewhere I could… Be for a while. I don't know what you want from me, I don't have a good excuse Isabelle."

"A good excuse!" I shout, not caring if someone else might hear us from outside. "I don't want an excuse Nathan! Does it not cross your mind how much harm you were going to… How much you've already… How long were you planning to stay?"

He shifts the weight from one foot to another, biting down on his lower lip. "A year, maybe. Depends"

"Depends! Depends on what! Depends on how long you could just… Get by on the kindness of everyone here? Just sit back, relax, no need to care about responsibilities or consequences since you're off in a year anyway! Not like anyone here matters to you, right?"

He turns to face me. "Isabelle, you know it's not like…"

"Get out."

"Isabelle…" Nathan takes a step forward, pleading silently with his gaze.

"I said get out!" I shout, grabbing the potted sunflowers and hurling them at the mayor. The pot doesn't even crack satisfyingly, the plastic bouncing against the wall next to the mayor and tumbling to the ground with a hollow clatter. Nathan stares at me, and for a moment I think he's about to say something, explain himself in such a way as to pull me out of this horrible dream.

But no. He lowers his head and walks past me. After a few heartbeats, I feel the town hall rattle slightly as the door slams shut behind me. I just sit there, motionless, watching the world revolve around me through the tiny vantage point of the window. The sky goes from bright blue to orange, clouds drifting along predestined paths in and out of frame, and time passes further still, burnt orange giving way to a magenta skyscape which gives way in turn to the violet hues of a night sky.

And Nathan still hasn't come back. It finally sets in that he isn't coming back. Wordlessly, I stand up and walk over to the potted plant, returning it to its original place on my counter. Shuffling through drawers, I pull out the tiny battered stereo-player and press play, a tinny echo of K. K. Slider's lilting voice issuing forth from the speakers. He's not coming back. I lay the stereo down, next to the sunflowers, and start to clean up the mess of paperwork on Mr… The future mayor's counter. As I stack some of the forms, a small piece of paper slips out onto the polished wooden surface.

 _Hope I can do you proud._

Tears fall onto the worn piece of paper, staining the ink until the words are left illegible, formless, gone.


	5. Chapter 5: A New Life

Chapter 5: A New Life

My first look at the life I'd left behind was the outskirts of Animal Town, a lone house standing out amongst the encroaching scrubland like the last gasp of a fading memory. It faded away completely as I tried to get a closer look, the memory fading completely, leaving nothing but moonlit forest behind. It was dark enough that I could see my reflection peering back at me, a stupid little man who'd blown his best chance at a happy life.

"And you deserve it." I muttered to myself, turning away from the window.

"Pardon?" A voice replied from behind. I turned to see a fox wearing a black turtleneck, slim fading jeans, and a lurid floral-pattern jacket, adding up to the distinct impression of a beat poet making a living on the side selling used car, leaning over from the seat behind mine. The corners of his mouth curled into a somewhat disconcerting smile, and I sighed inwardly. What was it with Animals on trains and trying to hook people who just wanted to be left alone into conversation?

"Sorry, just talking to myself." I said, hoping to blow the fox off without much effort. Sadly, it seemed foxes were just as bad as cats when it came to not getting a hint, and he quickly sidled over towards me and took the seat next to mine, arm over the headrest. I resolved to pretend like I couldn't speak at all the next time I encountered an overly sociable Animal on a train. Hopefully the basics of British sign language wasn't common knowledge amongst Animals.

"No worries, no worries at all," The fox oozed, giving me an enigmatic wink. "We all need a bit of that time to ourselves, in't that right, mayor?"

A chill went down my spine. "How did…" I sputtered. The fox laughed, eyes twinkling like stars going supernova. The arm slid off the headrest and around my shoulders instead, which only served to make me feel even more tense. Our proximity made me acutely aware of how tall the fox was; he was shorter than me by just a head, maybe less.

"The name's Redd, folks call me Crazy Redd on account of the time I burned a car down in a riot," He laughed in such a way that I couldn't tell if he was joking or utterly serious. "I'm an old friend of Isabelle. Well, acquaintance if we're going to get technical. She never told you about me? Not even once? Pity, we always had such wonderful conversations."

There was a certain way Redd smiled then that repulsed and enchanted me in equal measure. It was as if he'd confided with me, and only me, a particularly risqué joke that would never be uttered in public, and yet here he was, sharing it as if I were a trusted confidante. Even though I'd said nothing, it felt as if I were somehow complicit in a vague and nebulous "transgression" that had committed, and yet by sharing that sense of responsibility with Redd, the burden was lightened to the point of relief. It was the kind of smile he had no doubt trained in front of a mirror until it was sharp enough to make any heart bleed.

I was still uncomfortable in his presence, to be sure, but I found myself strangely warming up to the fox all the same. Redd's smile widened, and he pulled out a plastic packet of what was proclaimed to be North Sea FISHNACKS. He proffered the packet to me, which I refused, and he scooped out a pawful of dried fish strips with a shrug.

"More of a fan of the Japanese brands to be honest," Redd said, canines glistening as he chewed at the leathery fish strips. "Not that this Taiwanese import is bad or anything. Just, nothing beats the taste you grew up with, am I right? Used to save up my pocket money as a little cub, gorge myself the day I got them and give myself a stomach-ache, drove my poor mother up the wall." He laughed, slapping me on the back, and for some reason I found myself laughing alongside him.

"So, Nathan, you mind if I call you Nathan?" He suddenly asked. I stared slack-jawed at him, uncertain of how to respond, which he evidently took as a yes, as he continued. "Nathan, my friend, well, train buddy. Hah, what a sight we must make. Anyway, mayoral business not working out for you, I assume?"

"Well… That's…" I sputtered. It felt as if Redd had somehow drilled his way into my mind, carefully extracting my thoughts and examining them one by one. "What would make you think that?"

"Oh please Nathan," He snickered, covering his mouth with a surprisingly dainty paw. "I've heard the stories around town. The mysterious mayor with more rumours to his name than facts, suddenly on a train with no announcement of any trips and no secretary to see him off? I hope it doesn't seem like I've been spying on you or anything, I just happened to visiting Animal Town for business and… Well, let's just say I'm cursed with a bit of the old deductive reasoning."

"I… Look, sorry, but I don't think this has anything to do with you." I muttered, glancing back out the window. I saw the reflection of Redd nod sagely, the smile still there on his face.

"And I never said it did. Never let it be said that Redd is a fox who intrudes on personal matters. You have your privacy, and I will absolutely respect that, logical conclusions notwithstanding." He laid a paw on his chin, going silent for a moment as he seemed to ponder something. "Now, I'm sorry to ruin my aforementioned reputation so swiftly, and there's no pressure to answer this, keep your silence if that's your way, but given that you're not exactly the mayor right now, do you have other work lined up? Somewhere to stay?"

I said nothing, glancing at Redd's ghostly reflection momentarily before staring out at the inky darkness beyond the window, stretching outwards to an unknowable horizon. Somewhat to my surprise, Redd didn't sneer at my misfortune, instead giving me a look of genuine sympathy. He turned away, looking out at the window across from us.

"Look, I'm sorry about prying like that," He said with a frown. "I've gone through some rough patches in my life myself, and I'm not the type to kick someone when they're down. Just happened to hear things, you know, bit of a hot topic in the area, heh."

Redd laughed quietly, sniffed, then fell silent, aimlessly tapping his claws against the packet of fish. We sat there, silently listening to the percussive rustle of dried fish backed with the heavy grinding beat of train wheels on rail. I felt the fox shifting next to me, saw his phantom-like reflection reaching into his coat pocket, pulling out a small tin case. With fluid, practised motions, Redd flipped open the lid, slipped a card out into his paw, and then into my pocket.

"Here," He patted my shoulder and smiled. "Next station's mine, I have to make some calls and get ready. You keep that card, keep me in your thoughts. If you ever need some work, somewhere to crash a while, even if you just want to talk, call that number. No rush either. Today, tomorrow, next month, a year. Whenever you need me, just call."

With one last smile and a wave, he moved on down to the other end of the train, calling someone over a battered flip-phone as he did. I couldn't hear his voice over the clattering of the train, though he winked my way when we momentarily made eye contact, to which I turned away, face flushing. True to his word, Redd got off at the next stop, leaving me all alone. With the absolute darkness of night outside, it felt as if I were sitting in a trembling box, an incandescent gloom my the only source of light and comfort, heading towards an uncertain future, an unknown destination.

In time the train ground to a halt, I could see the pinprick lights of civilization, a town of some sort, glimmering outside my window. The conductor, a human instead of the monkey I had encountered previously, waltzed over and minced no words in making it clear this was the last stop, and I was to leave. I only remembered how cold it was outside when I stepped through the doors, a howling gust assaulting me and almost making me take a step back. The train doors rolled shut, an echoing clang drowning out my question as to whether there were any hotels the conductor might be able to recommend. There was something in that sound, the crash of thick iron doors closing behind me, that made me aware that, for the second time in as many weeks, I was well and truly alone.

I checked into a budget hostel, the only one I could find at an affordable rate. The first day I lay in bed, trying and failing to muster up the energy to just _do_ something. I took a stroll at sunbreak on the second day, a faint drizzle giving way to a cloying mist painted white in the early morning haze. Dropping into a chain café close to the hostel after my walk, I plugged in my phone and scrolled through the regional job listings over the internet. With each possible listing that caught my eye, I felt my hand drifting to my right-hand pocket where the card was still nestled.

After a few hours of aimlessly searching through the listings, crossing off job after job, I became acutely aware of the café's staff staring at me. Feeling a lurch in my stomach, I quickly exited the shop and returned to the hostel, making a brief stop at a convenience store to grab a few newspapers. As the cashier counted out the correct change, I suddenly asked whether the town saw many Animals.

"Huh," The cashier, an old man with lines like deep fissures, chuckled. "Won't see much of 'em 'round here. Last I saw of any Animals was durin' the War, everyone doin' their part n' all that. Stuck to themselves after that, s'how they like it I s'pose. I don't take much stock in Animal affairs, best we stick to our own sep'rate ways if you ask me." He scratched his nose, handing me my change. "If ye' dead set on looking for 'em, someone once told me they got a little village tucked away in the forest. Dunno if they let Humans in, but no 'arm in tryin'."

I thanked the cashier for his time and returned to the hostel, throwing the newspapers aside and flopping down onto the bed. My emotions felt out of alignment, part of me seemed grateful that there were no Animals who might recognize me, while another part of me felt a sense of wordless longing. For the rest of the day, I alternated between sleeping, checking the job listings in the newspapers, and mindlessly flicking through channels on the television propped up in a corner of the room. One of the channels seemed to be an advert for "Super-Charged Miracle Soap" running on a constant loop. On the third day I walked over to the window, pulled out the card, and called the number listed on it.

"Nathan, good to hear from you."

I could hear his smile through the phone.

Redd met me at the train station, a quick handshake, pat on the back, and again that smile. He still wore a turtleneck, though his floral jacket had been replaced with a garish windbreaker with a pink-and-white pattern haphazardly splashed across the fabric. It was like seeing the sun break through the clouds after a violent storm, a reassurance that everything was going to be all right.

A brief note here on Redd's smile. I call it a smile, but the genius behind it was that it wasn't an actual genuine smile, more of a vague impression, a smile made abstract. It is hard to put into words, but suffice it to say, all Redd ever provided was the impression of a smile, allowing the observer to fill in the gaps for themselves.

I have heard it described in many ways, the smile of a close friend, a trusted colleague, a lover with a heart of gold. For me, Redd was the stranger I could trust. Close enough to believe he would have my back, but distant enough that we would never be anything more than acquaintances. I couldn't say how much Redd was aware of how I saw him. As I say, what we saw in him was more of what we wanted to see as opposed to what was actually there.

In any case, it was enough to banish all the doubts that had bubbled up in my head as I anxiously waited on the train, heading towards a city whose name I have sadly long since forgotten, one of the rare few true cities populated almost entirely by Animals, with the residents duly calling it "The City", for there were no others to mistake it with. The train didn't stop at The City itself. Redd and I had to take a bus from the closest station, cutting through a forest that bisected The City from the surrounding Human towns, the sun beginning to set as we set off towards our destination.

"Can't tell you how happy I am you decided to come," Redd smiled as he took his seat next to me at the front of the bus. The bus driver, a strange balding turtle-like Animal, gave us a suspicious glance, but decided to leave us to our conversation as he pulled a lever, the doors closing with a pneumatic hiss. I was somewhat surprised that Redd and I were the only ones riding the bus, given how Redd's description of The City had portrayed it as a hustling bustling centre of Animal culture.

The bus was unusual, to say the least. Even outside of the city, I was used to buses looking like steel rectangles with wheels grafted on. However, the bus that wound its way from the station to the City, passing a few sleepy villages along the way, looked more like a refurbished school bus from the United States. It seemed that there wasn't a surface inside the bus that wasn't scuffed or bent in some way, shape, or form. I spent perhaps five minutes trying to decipher the faded posters on the partition just behind the driver before giving it up as a hopeless cause.

"Just us then." I noted, looking over my shoulder in case an Animal was somehow looming over it.

"Aye," The bus driver suddenly gurgled. "Used to be this bus'd be packed with Animals from bow to stern. Afore your time, no doubt. Back in the seventies it was, City used to be a big coal mining hub. Ye' won't see us on any Human history books, but we was there, shovellin' as much as the best of 'em. Yarr, I was strong back then, could push a filled up cart all on me own if I wanted to." He laughed, though it soon devolved into a hacking cough. "Aye, those were the days."

"What happened?" I asked.

"Ah, mines were all government-owned, weren't they?" The bus driver replied. "When they started closin' 'em down in the eighties, some of the Animals tried to join the union strike in '84, but some of the union heads weren't fond of Animals, and voted against it." He let out a melancholy sigh. "Last o' the mines closed down soon after, an' folks didn't have much of a reason to stay. Mines still up there, rustin' away year by year. Sometimes I'll drop by, remember me old days, but not for long, never at night. Ghosts up there, aye."

Redd gave a derisive laugh. "Don't let the old man get you down Nathan. He loves to bang on about the good old days whenever he gets the chance, always omitting those pesky details like collapsing mines killing dozens at a time, or how our benevolent heroes of the industry crushed any chance for the City to invest in alternative industries while we still had the time."

"Wasn't perfect, no," The bus driver muttered, giving Redd a sharp look through the rear-view mirror. "But I wouldn't be so quick to take the word of someone who was just a fox cub when the strikes happened, wasn't even in the country 'neither."

"There it is," Redd shot back, the uncharacteristic acid in his voice shocking me. "Scared of all the immigrants taking your job, old man? Why don't you do us all a favour and say it out loud."

The bus driver scowled, but shook his head and muttered something inaudible. Redd seemed to count it as a victory, as he rolled his eyes at the bus driver and then clapped me on the back with a sheepish grin. The speed with which his expressions had changed as he turned from the driver to me, like slipping from one mask to another, was as surprising as it was strangely alluring.

"Sorry about that," He said. "Nothing wrong with being an immigrant, right? In fact, I'd say it's something to be proud of. Sure, the City's fallen on hard times, but it's entrepreneurs like us who have that fresh perspective needed to give it a shot in the arm."

"Like us?" I asked, my brows furrowing in confusion.

"Of course! Oh Nathan, cousin, don't sell yourself short. Sure, it's not like you were born in another country or anything, but what were you if not an outsider when it came to Animal Town? It really is a pity I couldn't be there for you when you were mayor. I'm sure I could've helped you when you needed it.

"But don't worry about that, all in the past, tucked and stowed away, future's the business we need to keep our eyes on. I know, I know. Sounds scary, right? Well, not so scary when you've got a veteran business-fox like me as your mentor, right? Right. Thirty years under this belt, Nathan my man. I've hit the streets, highways, high roads, dirt paths, you name it. If it was made for walking, I was there selling my wares."

I opened my mouth, and Redd raised a paw to silence me. "Ah!" He smiled. "What are my wares, I hear you cry out. A good question, inquisitive mind, worthy of the philosophers. Used to be that it would be easier to ask, what _doesn't_ Redd sell? Ask anyone who knows me, they'll tell you the only thing that outdoes the places I've been is the range of what I've been able to sell. I've sold tables, chairs, stereos, Japanese swords, a hospital bed, even a toilet that one time."

I blinked. "A hospital bed?"

"Ah, what a story there is behind that one," Redd laughed. "Sadly, my lawyer advised me to keep mum on that little yarn. Not sure what they were expecting, buying a hospital toilet from a shop called Crazy Redd's, but c'est la vie."

There was a moment's silence as I found myself uncertain as to what I should say, while Redd appeared to be drifting through what were presumably memories of his old days of thrift and thrill. I was literally shaken from my daze as the bus hit a rock, remembering the discussion at hand.

"You were telling me about what you sell now."

"Was I?" Redd said, momentary confusion swiftly replaced with that cool collected smile that never seemed to reach his eyes. "Of course, course, what I sell. Well, I'd say it all really began when my father first took me to The Louvre. He was a businessman of sorts, the kind who rode the Japanese asset price bubble while the going was good. I was just a precocious little cub of five, first time in another country, still young enough to wonder why nobody spoke Japanese, convinced as I was that my wonderful country was the centre of the world."

The bus driver snorted, and Redd scowled for a moment before continuing.

"Looking at the Louvre for the first time, it was a revelation. Must have been 1989, they'd only just unveiled the pyramid. I remember asking him where the museum was, and he laughed and told me the pyramid _was_ the museum. Well, the entrance to it anyway. I don't know if I could ever put the beauty of that museum into words, all those masterpieces gathered like the greatest all-star line-up you'd ever seen.

"I learned an important lesson that day, Nathan. Art is power. Take the Mona Lisa, for example. What is it really? A realistic painting of some lady who probably sneaked a fart on Leonardo. We've all seen it, maybe in a book, a website, a postcard, whatever. But, literally millions of people still trudge all the way to that pyramid just to spend maybe ten seconds actually looking at the painting. And let me tell you, it's never as impressive as they'd like you to think it is."

"You learned that when you were five?" I asked, hunching my shoulders a little as Redd fixed me with a withering stare.

"Well yes, as you so rightly point out, I hadn't exactly developed a structuralist theory on art by looking at some pretty pictures in a famous art gallery," Redd replied. "I hope you don't mind that I compress time a little for the sake of my narrative. All you have to know is the kernel of an idea was born that day, one that would eventually grow into a more realized philosophy. Also, believe me Nathan, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but if you wouldn't mind, raise your hand if you have any burning interjections."

"Sorry."

"In any case, I wasn't too blown away by the Mona Lisa, more of a Delacroix appreciator myself, but my father was, for lack of a better word, bewitched. I remember him on the phone, doing his best to actually buy the Mona Lisa off The Louvre, or at the very least, one of their masterpieces. To tell the truth, I don't think he was actually that taken with the Mona Lisa as a painting any more than I was. But, like I said, art is power, and it was more the idea of owning such a physical representation of power and cultural authority that had my father phoning everyone he knew.

"I'm sure I don't have to tell you, he didn't get the Mona Lisa, or anything else the Louvre owned. So, he did the next best thing and bought a fake Gauguin. He was proud of that fake, made sure to find the exact place in the living room where everyone would see it, and the conversations at every party would, at some point, have to drift to 'Have you seen my Gauguin?'."

I opened my mouth, paused, and raised my hand tentatively. Redd nodded for me to proceed.

"Go on Nathan."

"So I'm not… I'm not exactly an art expert, but isn't Gauguin an incredibly famous painter?"

"Exactly!" Redd clapped his paws. "You'd think someone, at some point, would have enough of an eye to notice some small detail that was off, or that Gauguins aren't just something money can easily buy. But that's the funny thing about fake art, Nathan. My father was enough of a rich businessman, that people expected the Gauguin to be real, and so they subconsciously surrendered the critical eye, seeing exactly what they wanted to see. Besides, it's one thing to know the name Gauguin and recognize a few of his paintings, but it would take a very wary eye to spot the subtle differences in a masterful forgery.

Fat lot of good it did him in the end. Like I said, he made all his money speculating on the asset price bubble, and he lost just about everything when it came crashing down a year after our trip to France. He couldn't even sell the Gauguin since all the art appraisers could tell it was a fake. We ended up on the streets soon after, but foxes don't have a reputation of craftiness for nothing, and as you can see, I did quite well for myself."

I wasn't entirely sure how to judge the last statement. While Redd had the fashion-sense of an unscrupulous estate agent, he carried himself with the swagger of a Hollywood star, a swirling whirlpool of self-confidence that swept people like me into his vortex. What was there for me to do but smile and nod? In some small way, I secretly hoped that by being around such a figure, some small piece of his boldness would impart itself into my own personality.

"Sorry to interrupt ye storytellin', but we've arrived." The bus driver said. There was a hideous screeching around us as the bus ground to a halt, the jolt making me realize I had been staring at Redd the entire time. As I turned away from the fox, face flushed, I saw The City through the frame of a grimy bus window. Though the residents referred to it as The City, it was more a small town in size and ambition, stone houses and buildings clustered around a plaza. It was a far cry from the spacious planning of Animal Town, and I found The City in a poor light when to the smaller settlement. There was also a conspicuous lack of lights, with most of the lampposts gathered around the plaza, leaving the rest of the city shrouded in a veil of darkness.

The City felt cramped, for lack of a better word. There was no sense of urban planning or thought put into making the settlement seem pleasing to the eye. It felt like the buildings had been constructed in a slapdash manner next to each other, each house jostling for space between its neighbours, leaving an impression of claustrophobia. Still, Redd had been kind enough to allow me to stay in what he called his "atelier", and I felt certain that with enough time I could come to understand The City's unique beauty.

"Stay close to me, cousin," Redd told me as we got off the bus. "City's not what you'd call a, how would I put this, crime-filled area, but the locals tend not to be too friendly when it comes to new faces, especially a Human."

I dutifully stuck close to Redd, feeling a cold sweat on the back of my neck. I had never been slow to admit to the fact that I'd lived a life of relative privilege for the most part, and it was hard to shake the sense of paranoid fear that darkened alleyways brought about. As we walked across the plaza, a figure lurched out from the shadows, and I let out a small yelp, much to my embarrassment.

"A balloon for the young sir?" The figure asked, his voice a rich baritone that seemed to shake the very air around us. As he stepped into the light, I saw that he was a sea lion wearing what seemed to be a ringmaster's outfit, though it had clearly seen better days, as well as a pair of rounded glasses that glimmered under the fluorescent light of the lampposts above. A pink balloon hovered in the air next to him, and he offered the string towards me with a gentle smile.

"Not tonight Phineas, maybe another time." Redd said, waving the sea lion away. Phineas seemed disappointed, but nodded to us and muttered a "good night" to our backs.

"Who was that?" I asked Redd as we turned into a dimly-lit street.

"Oh, Phineas?" Redd laughed. "Poor old Phineas. I don't know the full story, but I heard he really wanted to open up a circus or something to that effect in the city. Maybe they'd have a Human jump through a ring instead of a lion, hah! Anyway, as you might expect, it all fell through, and he took it pretty hard. Not sure why he wanted a circus when The City already has a marquee, but I won't judge the dreams of others. Don't worry, he might be a bit eccentric but he's harmless."

We walked further and further into the barely lit recesses of the city, buildings looming over us on either side giving me the impression of colossal guards keeping a close eye on the stranger in their midst. Overhead, I could barely make out the impression of a clothesline with various clothes fluttering listlessly against the cool night breeze.

"Why is the city so cramped? Couldn't they have built the buildings a little further apart?" I asked as we turned the corner into yet another narrow alley.

Redd laughed. "The City's in a bit of an awkward spot. See, the tiny patch of land the city's built on was originally a gift from some king to some Animal for… I'm not sure, polishing his boots or something, back in the Stuart Period. As life goes, rich Animal family got richer, received royal permission to open up some mines as long as the crown got a cut of the profit, and the manor grew into an informal town.

Time goes on, and The City gets an official charter, but apparently there was some bad blood between the head of the family and the royals at that time, since only the land that was originally gifted and the mines were permitted to be part of The City. All the other land is legally under crown estate ownership, and so the residents had to rely on filling any and all space they could find."

Redd laughed again, though I couldn't see the humour in what he was saying. I stifled my response as I saw another Animal sitting on the side of the alley just ahead of us, a blob-like shape hidden in shadow that began to stand as we approached. Redd muttered something under his breath before the corners of his mouth stretched up in a wide smile.

"Shrunk," Redd said, stretching his paws out as if to embrace the figure. "What are you doing here?"

"Redd, buddy, you know I wouldn't come to you unless it was an emergency," Shrunk, a scruffy axolotl with a suit whose yellow luridness could give Redd's own wardrobe a run for its money, replied with a nervous laugh. "Look, work at the marquee just isn't bringing in the bells I thought it would, and rent's due soon, so… You couldn't hook me up with another loan could you?"

"Shrunk, I appreciate the energy in coming all the way to my door about this." Redd said, walking over to the axolotl and putting an arm around his shoulder. It was hard not to miss Shrunk flinching violently, wiping his face with a crumpled tissue. "Now, as you can see, my cousin over there's a visitor. He's come from far out of town, Shrunk, friend, and I'm more than certain that you can understand, now's not the best time. I'm sure you have my card, but just in case…"

Redd pulled out one of his business cards and slipped it into the front pocket of Shrunk's hideous suit jacket. "Next morning, you give me a call on that number, okay? Not too early, mind. We can't all be as full of vim and vigour as you are, amigo."

"Yeah, right… Uh, sure," Shrunk mumbled, giving Redd a weak smile and nodding apologetically my way. "I'll uh, call you later. Yeah. Uh, night."

Shrunk bowed repeatedly as he left, giving Redd as many regards as he could before vanishing completely into the alley's gloom. Redd sighed deeply, rubbing the bridge of his muzzle between the eyes. I wanted to ask what the exchange had been about, but something about Redd's bearing at that moment made me stay quiet.

"Sorry about that," Redd smiled. "Shrunk's an old associate of sorts, he helped me out with getting set up in The City when I first arrived, and I've been a preferred money lender of sorts to him for a while now. Word of advice for you if you're ever hit some rough times financially. Always get your loans from someone you trust. Might sound obvious, but you'd be surprised to see the amount of folks who head for the first name they see advertised."

"Is that… What you do? You never said what you currently work as, but are you a… moneylender?"

Redd howled with laughter at that, taking a moment to wipe the tears from his eyes before replying. "No, Nathan, I'm not a professional loan shark, which is what I think you wanted to say. Though I suppose in my case, it would be more of a loan fox. That being said, the work I do probably has a similarly poor reputation in society."

Raising a paw to silence me, he walked over to a large iron door that I hadn't noticed for all the darkness of the alley, and gave a complex pattern of knocks. A rectangular peephole slid open, and a pair of beady eyes stared at us from inside, narrowing as they focused on me standing behind Redd.

"Who's that?" Came a muffled voice. There was an accent, but I couldn't pinpoint it.

"What, are we playing twenty questions now?" Redd frowned. "Open the door Kicks."

"Blimey, hold your horses then." Kicks retorted, sliding the peephole shut before the door swung open. Redd made his way inside, nodding for me to follow, and I gingerly stepped into the dimly lit room. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I realized that I was in Redd's "atelier", a large space filled with various works of art; paintings of all styles and ages, sculptures in a variety of materials, as well as odd knick-knacks strewn across any available space. One painting in particular caught my eye.

"Hold on, that's… That's that Vermeer painting, the famous one." I said, walking up to the framed painting.

"Very astute of you, cousin," Redd said, walking next to me while Kicks stayed near the entrance. "Yes, it's The Milkmaid herself in all her plain unadorned glory."

"But I thought it was on display at a Dutch museum. What's it doing here?"

"Slight correction there Nathan. The _original_ is on display at a Dutch Museum."

"Wait… So this is…"

"Exactly. One of the pieces I'm most proud of, to be quite honest. Getting the colours exactly right was quite a challenge, but I think it all came out all right in the end. I told you about my father and the trip to the Louvre. What truly left it's impression on me, Nathan, wasn't the brilliance of the paintings or the beauty of the museum itself. It was the fact that my father paid millions for a fake Gauguin, something that was only worthless when he tried to sell it to people who knew their art.

"Yes, the fact of the matter is, I'm a forger. But not just any forger. I'm not selling to billionaires or even rich people in general. I'm selling my masterpieces of artistic duplicity to people and Animals who can't tell a Manet from a Monet, but would pay good money to pretend they do. And I would love for you to be a part of my enterprise, cousin."

Redd smiled. A cruel, vicious, beautiful smile.


	6. Chapter 6: Memories of You and Me

Chapter 6: Memories of You and Me

I've been lying in bed for the last day. Maybe longer; I shut the thick heavy curtains as soon as I got home, wrapping my room in perpetual darkness. I woke up at some point with a splitting headache before closing my eyes and forcing myself into a fitful sleep for at least a few hours more. When I'm awake, I just stare at the ceiling, doing my best to avoid thinking about anything.

Someone knocks on the door. I turn in bed, pulling the pillow over my ears in a futile attempt to drown out any sound from the outside world. _Just leave me alone._ The knocking continues, and I hear a rustling as the Animal on the other side tries to open the door. A moment of silence follows, then comes sharp click, and the door creaks open.

There's only one Animal in town who has the key to my house, and I'm undecided on whether I want to talk to her right now. Soft muffled footsteps make their way cautiously to me, and I feel a weight near my legs as Olivia sits down on the side of the bed.

"Sorry about letting myself in," She says. "Nobody's seen you for a while, we've been a little worried. Just… Wanted to check in."

"Well, you've checked in," I mutter, staring resolutely at anything but Olivia. "You can go now."

"Isabelle…" Olivia sighs. "I just…"

"Just what?" I snap. "I'm not a Ming vase Olivia, I can take care of myself." I shift myself so that I'm sitting upright, paws behind my back, looking right into Olivia's eyes. It's hard not to see the hurt there, harder still to shut myself off from it. _What am I doing? She just came here to help, and here I am, pushing her away just for making an effort._ I curl up my knees, resting my head on them in silence, listening to the sound of Olivia's soft breathing.

"I can…" She pauses, shifts so that she's halfway off the bed. "I can leave if it's not a good time."

"No," I say, almost reflexively. "You can… Please stay."

"Okay…" Olivia slowly nods, looks me in the eyes and slowly shifts a paw towards me so that she's almost leaning all the way over to me. "Is it… Can I come in?" There's a quiet moment of hesitance between us, sketching out distinct hazy boundaries into something more concrete.

"Go ahead." I finally reply, shuffling to the side to allow Olivia to slip into the bed next to me. She gingerly lifts the covers, making a face at what must be at least a day's worth of canine bed sweat, but takes the plunge regardless. There's an awkward physical negotiation for space in my now-cramped bed, punctuated by a soft gasp at first contact as I brush up against. "Belle!" Olivia exclaims. "It's like sitting next to a furnace!"

"Says the ice queen." I shoot back, rubbing my arm. Olivia snorts and jabs her cold paws towards me, causing me to squirm and half-heartedly bat her away. When we finally settle down, we sit side by side, and I only just notice the sound of rain outside.

"You got an umbrella?" I ask.

Olivia shakes her head. "It was cloudy when I was making my way here, but I thought I could risk it. That…" She glances over at me and smirks. "And I have a whole bunch of your umbrellas in my house, and I suppose I just wasn't in the mood to return them yet."

"Just when I thought there was a town-wide conspiracy to nick all my umbrellas." I mutter incredulously, and we share a brief, if somewhat forced, laugh. Forced as it is, there's a warm sense of nostalgia, like looking into a scrapbook you made as a child and finding a snapshot of a life where everything seemed to make sense. _Ugh, at what point did I lose track of my own life so much?_

"Are you alright, purrr?"

"Huh? Yeah. Fine."

"You sure? You're doing that… Face thing."

"Face thing?" I turn and give Olivia a baffled look.

"Yes, you know, you sort of scrunch up your face when you're thinking about something miserable."

"I do not!" I shout, a little more forcefully than I intend.

"Isabelle," Olivia fixes me with one of her own _face things_ , lowered chin and raised brows. "Please."

I heave a heavy sigh of defeat. "Am I that easy to read?"

"Well, I have had twelve or so months of experience. Happy one year anniversary, by the way."

"Ah," Despite the sweaty heat of the bed, I feel a cold sweat on my brow. "One year then."

"If you count the two months of almost total silence between us, yes."

I try to give her an answer, but I can't. It feels like my throat's swollen up, the words lodged on the cusp of vocalization, falling just before the finish-line. The silence feels much louder than my voice could ever be, and I grip the edge of the blanket tight, opening and closing my mouth wordlessly. Olivia turned towards me, reaching out so that she could pull me into a hug. She felt warm and somehow firm, a presence as reassuring as the earth beneath our feet.

"I know you don't like to talk about… The troubles you have. We've spent a lot of time together, and I learned how to know when you were having a… Well, an episode, and I did my best to give you space when I thought you needed it. And I know what I hurt you, and that words aren't going to change that. Whether or not I get a chance to make things up… That's your choice to make. Just… Don't leave me hanging like this. Not for two months. No more of this in-between life. If this is it, then that's okay, I can make my peace with that. But… I just want to say, Belle, you don't have to endure it all on your own."

I begin to cry, the real ugly kind of crying reserved for me locking myself in my bedroom or in front of my family, coupled with wretched sobbing noises. Olivia holds me through it all, patting my back and whispering "It's okay. Let it out." I feel like I should be sick of crying by now, considering how much I've been doing it over the last day, but there's a difference between crying alone and crying with a loved one that I find hard to put into words.

So I cry, I cry and I cry, holding Olivia tight as she holds me in a tender embrace, arms and hearts entwined.

* * *

I've never been much of a coffee enthusiast like other Animals I know, Digby being a particular fanatic, seeing it as more of a booster shot than anything else, but even I can't deny Brewster's stunning skills when it comes to brewing an _amazing_ cup of coffee. Part of that might be due to his uncanny ability to add in just enough sugar to make it sweet, but not unbearably so.

I wish I could visit The Roost more often, but with the café building being converted from an abandoned farm, it's a thirty minute walk out of the town's outer border, a little too far just for one cup of coffee, even if it tastes wonderful. I'm staring out the window at the hills rising and falling out into the horizon, rich in orange hues with a scattering of verdant green here and there.

The pleasant tone of the door's bell rings out as Nook walks into the café, nodding at Brewster who begins brewing a cup of coffee right away, and he makes his way over to my table. I'm sitting all the way to the back of the café, even though there's nobody outside of me and Nook here today, a force of habit I've never been able to kick. Nook gives me an apologetic nod as he takes off his jacket, draping it over the chair across from me and sitting down on it.

"Sorry," He says. "Rather embarrassing, being late to your own scheduled meeting."

"It's okay," I say as Brewster quietly walks over to us, laying Nook's steaming cup of coffee on the table, and then departing with a bow. "I'm the one who should be apologizing, leaving you to take up the mantle of deputy mayor like that."

"Nothing to apologize for," Nook replies, blowing on his coffee before laying it back down on the table, Brewster shaking his head from the counter. "Goodness, this is nothing compared to how busy I was when I was working out in The City. Working out in more than one way, ho ho, a potbelly like the one I have now would have been unthinkable." He chuckles to himself, patting his admittedly rotund belly, looking out the window with a strangely wistful expression.

I also glance out the window, spotting the ever solitary figure of Fang dressed head to toe in hiking gear, making his way across a distant hill. Of all the town's residents, Fang is the one of the most enigmatic of Animal Town's residents. Even Olivia opened up eventually, but Fang has remained as frosty as the Siberian steppes he apparently came from since the first day he arrived in Animal Town.

Sometimes, he just vanishes without notice for days or weeks at a time, and pops back in town just as abruptly, the only comment on his disappearance being that he's fine. Watching him hike up the hill, I wonder if solo hiking is his hobby, a way to get away from, what is presumably in his eyes, the hustle and bustle of the town. _Maybe I should take up hiking too._

"So, what did you want to talk about?" I ask as Fang crests the top of the hill, slowly descending out of sight.

"Hm?" Nook snaps to attention, blinking a few times before taking a sip of his coffee. "Ah, right. It's about the mayor actually. Nathan."

"Oh." I drag out my own sip of coffee as far as I can push it, and remain silent even after I lay the cup down, crossing my arms and waiting for him to continue.

"Would you like to…" Nook leans back in his chair, coughs a little. "We don't have to talk about what happened if it's something you're not ready to discuss right now. That being said, given that Nathan is still officially the mayor of Animal Town, we are going to have to talk about what we should do moving forwards." He leans forward, turns the cup a little, frowns. "So, I just want to confirm, but Nathan is…?"

I close my eyes, clutch my own cup tightly, try to remember to count to ten. "Yeah. He's… He's gone."

"Forever?"

"I mean… I don't know what to say, Nook. Maybe? That's the closest I have to a certain answer. It turns out… Ugh, it's all kind of a mess." I begin to relay what happened to Nook, glazing over the part where I had gotten both of us somewhat drunk. For his part, Nook listens to it all without interruption, nodding a few times and frowning when I mention Nathan's rambling explanation about some kind of bet and a cat.

Nook remains silent I finish, taking a final sip of his coffee as he mulls over my story. I notice, to my embarrassment, that my own cup has been left untouched while I was speaking. Brewster kindly walks over and replaces it with a freshly brewed coffee. I thank him as he drifts away, though I wonder if it had more to do with his pet peeve about 'true flavour only being found in properly heated coffee'.

"You frowned for a moment there." I say, raising my eyebrows at Nook.

"Did I?" He replies, his poker-face a little _too_ practiced to seem natural.

"Nook," I sigh. "I'm a tired overworked secretary trying her best to milk the right side of thirty while it lasts. After what's happened with Nathan, I've had my fill of evasive men. And portly tanuki."

Nook replies with his own sigh, a weighty rumble of an exhale. The mask slips, and I'm struck with how old Nook really is. The grey hairs seem more pronounced when he slumps down, fur around the eyes beginning to recede, the refinement of age weighed down by the burden of aching bones. _Okay Isabelle, let's not get too melodramatic. He's a real-estate agent, not some Dickens character._

"How much have I told you about where I'm from?" Nook suddenly asks. The question takes me by surprise, and I take a few moments to answer.

"Not much, just that you came to the U.K. when you were young." I reply.

"Hm," Nook motions to Brewster for a fresh cup of coffee, and begins to talk over the sputtering gas fire and rattle of water inside the kettle. "I was born out in Estonia. So, just a humble raccoon-dog I'm afraid. Related to tanuki, but they're all from Japan. Well, at the time it was called Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, part of the Soviet Union. Soviet communism didn't do much for its people, and even less so for the animals. When the union finally crumbled in 1991 and Estonia declared its independence, my parents were all for staying and building a new life for ourselves in the new independent Estonia. I was… Young, brash, and full of admiration of the rumours I'd heard of life in the West.

"Truth be told, there wasn't much left for me in Estonia. Most of my extended family had been executed or sent to the gulags under Stalin, and part of me wondered whether animals might find the new Estonia just as repressive as the old one. In any case, after a bit of arguing, I ran away from home and hitch-hiked my way all across Europe, eventually finding work in the animal city out south. There was a small but growing community of Animals who had also immigrated from the Soviet Union after the collapse, and we looked out for each other. That's where I met Rover.

"Rover bonded with our community on a shared sense that neither of us had anywhere to go back to. That being said, he was never truly a part of the community, and the only Animals he ever developed a friendship with was me and a young fox from Kyrgyzstan who was around the same age as us. I always felt bad for Rover. Some of us were better than others when it came to assimilating into local British culture. I remember the fox, changed his name to Redmond after emigrating, was so successful that some people assumed he really was British after a few months. Rover picked up the accent just as fast, but you could tell he wasn't quite settled in the same way as Redmond."

Nook's brows furrow, and he turns to the window and stares out at the field beyond for some time, not even responding when Brewster lays a cup of coffee down in front of him. I decide to let him ruminate, taking a sip of my own coffee as Brewster puts on a record of soft resonant piano music. After a moment's silence as the first song on the record reaches its conclusion, Nook turns back to me and continues his story.

"Animals aren't built for cities, even ones we build with our own two paws. I said that Redmond had settled, but when I say settled, what I mean is…" He pauses, then directs a question at me. "You're from a city in Scotland, if I recall correctly?"

"Uh, Aberdeen, yes." I reply, a little flustered by the suddenness of his question.

"Were you in the city itself, or an Animal commune on the outskirts?"

"The Aberdeen Animal Commune, yes. It was a thirty minute walk from the city, but we were pretty much self-sufficient and I don't remember heading to the city centre all that often."

"Even if we might not think about it actively, most Animals are aware that we generally prefer to organize as a tight-knit community. The sheer size of most cities, even ones small enough to be thought of as a town by human standards, make that kind of organization difficult, and it's why we prefer to either live in communes attached to but not necessarily part of a larger human settlement, or set up small towns like this.

"Redmond and Rover were two sides of a similar issue, both separated from a community in different ways. In Redmond's case, he spent more and more time with humans, and… I hope I don't sound too dramatic when I say that it warped him. It was certainly the case that he grew nastier, tossing aside his old roots and relationships when they failed to satisfy his ever-growing wants. I… Well, I loved him, and thought he loved me, and that made me do things I still regret. If Sable hadn't been there at the time to pull me out, I don't know if I would even be here today."

"Sable?" I blurt out. Nook smiles as I put a paw to my mouth in embarrassment.

"Yes. I won't say why she was in the city, she had her personal reasons and I won't speak on her behalf, but we met when I had hit one of the lowest points in my life. I was, for lack of a better word, a wreck, and she helped to invite me to Animal Town, where I could start a healing process, become a functioning Animal once more. Even when I was still living there, Rover hardly visited the city, and when I left, I think it cut the last true link to anything resembling a community Rover had.

"I said that Rover's separation was the opposite to Redmond's. What I meant by that is that while Redmond rebuilt himself so that he could graft himself onto human society, no matter how it changed him, Rover didn't really have anything to graft onto in the first place, human or Animal. Like his namesake, he just… Roamed across the world, never staying in one place for too long.

"I told Rover that I would be moving to Animal Town, and so every few months I would receive a postcard from where Rover was at the time, but since he moved around so much I could never reply, and after a few years, the postcards stopped arriving. The next time we actually met in-person was in the autumn of 1998. Rover was never the most sociable of Animals, but I was struck by how… Distant he felt, as if we were meeting for the first time.

"All that time of living on his own caused Rover to develop a deep-rooted insecurity. It was only something I noticed after he had left the next day, so I had no chance to really discuss it with him. Then, in the spring of 2001, a young teenage girl arrived in Animal Town, told to come here by Rover after they met on a train. He told me on the phone just before she actually turned up that he thought the town would be good for her."

"I never knew there was a human who came to the town before Nathan," I say. "We moved back to Aberdeen that year so that Digby and I could study GSCEs in a human school, but even after I came back, nobody ever said anything about it."

"Actually, there were three," Nook replies. "The second came in 2005, and then a third in 2008, the former arriving on his own initiative while the latter was another one sent by Rover. You came back four years after the third human, so the only ones by that time who really remembered the arrivals were the old guards such as Tortimer and Blathers. The first two had their fair share of personal issues, but we managed to help them and send them on their way after a year or so.

"The third was… Better left forgotten, and it effectively ended whatever friendship I had left with Rover, and most of us did our best to put it all behind us, which is probably why you never heard about it until now. In any case, I assumed that all my troubles with Rover were behind me. After a decade of silence, with all the things that happened in-between such as inviting Timmy and Tommy to run the shop while I set up Nook's Homes, all the visits to the GP to remind me how old I'm getting, and the recent commotion with Mortimer's retirement. I had my suspicions about Nathan, but he was always too cagey for me to confirm any of those doubts."

"So you think the cat Nathan mentioned was Rover?"

Nook shrugs. "I think it could be, or it could be someone else, or Nathan was just making something up as an excuse." He fidgets with the cup for a brief moment before taking another sip. "I'm not sure how, but I'll see if I can find a way to get in touch with Rover again. If Nathan isn't coming back, then Rover would be the only one who could, maybe, tell us what happened."

"I suppose," I frown, taking a sip of my own coffee. "It's just… I'm not sure what knowing whether this Rover was involved will do to help. Sorry that's a bit pessimistic."

"It's understandable," Nook nods. "I'm not sure how much it would help directly, but sometimes having more information about something can help us to come to terms with it more effectively." He smiles sadly. "That, and I'm getting more than a little nostalgic now that I'm in my mid-forties, and after thinking about Rover… It made me ramble on a little. I'm sorry about that."

"It's alright. It feels a little weird, I can remember you being here as far back as I can remember, but this is the first time I've ever heard you… Talk about yourself."

"I was quite a private fellow back in the day," Nook laughs. "Things weren't as bad as they were in the 70s or 80s, and most humans left Animals well enough alone or lumped us all into a single community, but I was always a little scared of people finding out where I came from. It's why I talk the way I do when I'm at work, I learned most of my early English from radio commercials and working at a car insurance firm. My accent slowly went away after I moved to Animal Town, but I could never really drop my strange affectations at work."

I finish my coffee and smile. "Hey, thanks for everything. Really. I know you were already busy with all the treasury work on top of the real estate business, and all the support you've been giving Timmy and Tommy, and then I added to your pile with Tortimer retiring on such short notice."

Nook waves a paw. "Like I said, it's fine. I know you were going through a difficult patch with Olivia, and, well, I'm sure you understand now why I take those kinds of situations so seriously."

"Yeah… We're sort of back together actually. You know, working things out."

"I'm very happy to hear that. You are looking better, so that's good. Though I do want to ask, are you all right?" He reaches over and places a paw on my arm.

"I'm…" I give a weary smile, patting his outstretched arm with my a paw of my own. "I'm not sure, Nook. Confused, maybe. Everything just kept happening, one after another, and it feels like I haven't had the time to just sit down and untangle my emotions. Honestly, when Nathan came, I guess I knew there was something off about the whole thing, but I thought… I don't know. I just wanted a moment's respite, and grabbed at any chance at stability without thinking. Stupid."

"You aren't stupid, Isabelle," Nook shakes his head. "Nobody lives a perfect life, and if I were in your shoes, I would have made the same decision as you. I'm sure anyone here in the town would say the same, if asked. It's okay to feel sad or regret over the situation, but don't fall too much into a pit of beating yourself up over it." He pulls his paw away, leaning back in his chair. "Though I'll admit, I do have my own particular regret about the whole thing."

"What's that?"

"Cheeky human never paid the bill for his house. I know it was a bill in advance, but still."

I snort loudly at that, shaking my head. For all he talks about settling into Animal Town, some small part of The City still lives on in Nook's heart. My thoughts turn to Nathan. Could the same be said of him? Of any human? Are they carrying an invisible load on their shoulders when they first step into an animal community? I wish I had the answers, but with Nathan apparently gone for good, I'm not sure I'll ever find a satisfactory answer. If there was ever one to begin with.

* * *

As I make my way out of The Roost, I decide to climb up the hill where I caught a brief glimpse of Fang. The hill itself lies to the side of the path going from The Roost to Animal Town's centre, and I realize that I've never really walked off the path and up any of the surrounding hills. I wonder what the view is like? Beginning my brief detour, I fish out my cell phone from my jacket pocket and dial a number.

"…"

"…"

"Hello?"

"Hey, mom? It's Isabelle."

"Oh sweetheart, hello! I was just talking to Digby an hour ago! I hear he's working in Animal Town as well now?"

"Yeah, moved in a week ago. Not sure how long he's staying, but it's nice to see him in-person. Is everything okay up where you are?"

"Oh, you know, cold and miserable, anything to give us oldies something to complain about. The garden's been coming together quite well though, you really should come and visit for Christmas."

"I'll think about it, kind of a 24/7 job mom. How's dad?"

"Oh, same as ever, still thinks I'm his sister half the time. Though he has been doing better lately, I think it's the autumn weather. I'm going to take him for a nice walk across the park tomorrow, he always likes that."

"That's good to hear. Send him my regards."

"I will. Anyway, I was talking to Digby… He says you were going through a bit of a bad spot? Do you want to talk about it with me? I still have the number of the therapist you used to see, if you think going back there might help."

"Thanks mom, but I'm okay, really. It was just… Just a lot of things kind of overwhelmed me and I guess I just kind of shut down for a bit. I'm uh, back with Olivia now."

"Oh that's wonderful! You always sounded so happy when you were talking about her. I'm glad you could find that special someone in your life."

"Jeez mom, you're making it sound like I was going to be a spinster or something."

"Isabelle, I was never afraid of you not marrying in your life. Now, what I was afraid of was turning on the TV when you were in university and seeing you burning a bra."

"Writing my graduation thesis on Emmeline Pankhurst doesn't mean I'm a power feminist mom."

"I knew a few girlfriends who would beg to differ."

"Mom! They were flings, okay? Flings."

"I'll take your word for it dear."

"If it's all the same, I would rather not be lectured by someone who once dated a dog who legally changed their name to Antichrist ."

"Betrayed by my own daughter! The very thought."

"Okay well, it's getting late and I'm cooking for Olivia tonight, so I'd better get going."

"Alright dear, I'm schlubbing it with pizza tonight, you lesbians enjoy your healthy home-cooked meals."

"Mom, you are at _least_ forty years too old to use the word schlubbing."

"Don't lose your cool, bae."

"Mom!"

"No need to be so cray."

"Mother I'm hanging up the phone now."

"Love you, sweet pea."

"Same here."

"Isabelle?"

"What's up?"

"It really is nice to hear from you."

"Yeah… I'll call again soon, promise. Bye for now."

"…"

"…"

I'm standing up on top of the hill now, looking at the houses and trees peppering the land ahead of me, all united under a shared sense of community. I can see my own house, and can almost convince myself that if I stare hard enough, I can see Olivia standing there in the window, waiting for me to come home. For the first time in months, I begin making my way back home with a genuine smile on my face.


End file.
